


If Steve Rogers Were Your Boyfriend

by bopeep



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst, Artist Steve Rogers, Awesome Peggy Carter, Baking, Barista Steve Rogers, Brock Rumlow is a dick, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Writes Self-Insert, Dogs, Drinking & Talking, Fluff, Language, M/M, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Mutual Pining, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Self-Hatred, Texting, Writer Bucky Barnes, everything in moderation, hahaha just kidding, who doesn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-05-22 23:29:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 70,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6097468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bopeep/pseuds/bopeep
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he's not editing a magazine he truly loathes or navigating a rocky relationship he truly doesn't deserve, Bucky Barnes writes a fantasy romance column with an unexpectedly loyal internet following about the barista at his favorite cafe. Barista Boyfriend makes these other worlds bearable, but the real world dreamboat isn’t remotely involved; Steve Rogers is just a muse. Everyone loves the column. And it definitely isn’t killing Bucky very gently in 500 word increments, not in the slightest. What kind of a writer can't keep fact and fiction straight?</p><p>James Fuckin' Barnes, that's who.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Out of Character

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [假如史蒂夫・羅傑斯是你的男朋友](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6365143) by [sashach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashach/pseuds/sashach)



In less than fifteen minutes, thousands of visitors had already read his latest column and a slew of comments followed. Bucky Barnes took a sip of his latte, foam art recklessly smearing over his top lip. The top comment: “I gotta find this coffee shop you go to, honey!!” He smirked, hearing it very clearly in his head. The readership of _Barista Boyfriend_ was so cute. He tapped in a response idly; nothing could compel his calm to rush it. The comment appeared under his very basic, perfectly anonymous pseudonym, next to an icon of a coffee mug.  
  
**_James ☕_ **  
_Leave your house, walk three blocks east. The first Starbucks you see. He has an opening shift. Go get ‘em._  
  
Two hearts popped up instantly and he closed out the page, triumphant. Bucky didn’t know much at all about cultivating traffic these days, but he liked being liked. Who doesn’t? Without feedback, he was just pining to the void about a cute coffee shop employee, and why do that when people on the internet could relate? Actual Barista Boyfriend’s voice drifted over his shoulder, calling out orders to his team. Bucky could hear the smile in his voice over the Van Morrison of the coffee shop. It wasn’t a Starbucks at all (and he loved that it wasn’t a Starbucks.) Bucky loved everything about the place. He loved getting weird breakfast sandwiches named after authors. He loved the smooshy couches and mismatched furniture like an offbeat resale shop. He loved that the wifi password switched between “asecret” and “thereisntone” because the only thing the manager loved more than a good Who’s on First joke was pissed off hipster dads with no sense of humor. What more could you ask?  
  
Every Monday morning he sat down in an avocado green love seat at The Birdhouse Cafe and Bakery and began a new _Barista Boyfriend_. The place was quiet right before the lunch rush but it was especially satisfying to watch BB in his element as customers streamed in, like front row tickets to the Nutcracker. The role of Barista Boyfriend was played unwittingly by Steven Rogers (some-time lovable asshole, most-time sunbeam, unabashed lover of The Eagles, candied ginger, and binge-watcher of The West Wing, not that Bucky hoarded these facts like a greedy dragon or anything,) and in Bucky’s eyes it was the performance of a lifetime; he just wrote what he saw. Little nuances caught his attention: the way the young man comically hung his head when his boss made a shitty pun, how he would genuinely think about a drink suggestion when customers asked what he liked best, how he called out business-types for being on their phones, and God forbid they cut in line or he would hang them out to dry. Painting the picture for Bucky's audience was so easy with a subject so vibrant. People loved this game, the _If You Had to Choose_ game, falling in love on trains and in bookshops and in bars with strangers, imagining meet-cutes. He was capitalizing on a trend, he realized, but Barista Boyfriend sold himself: a single-serving romance novel starring You. For a living, Bucky read and edited the ugliest men’s interest editorials. Currently in his work inbox were two separate pieces on phone app hookups, as if that wasn’t already on the way out of the trend zone ( _God willing,_ he thought.) Surely Bucky was allowed a little sweet, harmless fun totally separate from the tits, ass, and grime one day a week. Reading these comments tomorrow morning around his first coffee break would keep him going as he had to slog through some insufferable baby’s whiny take on women not shaving their legs in the wintertime, or similar.

But he didn’t have to think about that. That Monday morning, he had devoured not one, but two stupidly perfect pastries, and inspiration struck, as it always did.    

 

> _Barista Boyfriend has a secret. As you brush a light dusting of snow from your pea coat after an extra shift and late-night subway ride home, you recognize a heavenly smell from the kitchen and a sweet baritone absentmindedly humming along with Ella Fitzgerald. You try not to break the lovely scene with a single sound but your boots are heavy, and of course, he’s been waiting up for you._
> 
> _“Oh, sweetheart,” he commiserates without having to hear a single detail; it’s been a long day and he reads you cover to cover faster than a Nancy Drew paperback. But vanilla and cinnamon overwhelm you and the chill in your cheeks is nothing to ruin the anticipation of whatever’s in the oven that might, dare to dream, be even sweeter than your suddenly domestic darling._ _  
> _ _  
> “Did you--- bake something?” you ask. He smirks._
> 
> _“Who do you think bakes all the pastries at the shop, doll? I wouldn’t leave your side at 4 AM on a Monday for just anything, you know..."_

_  
_ The blurbs began something like that, and always ended with some iteration of “ _doesn’t that sound nice?_ ” which Bucky thought was brilliant, if he did say so himself, because 1) of course it sounded nice, but 2) _nice_ also carried a funny little connotation of derision, like _too good to be true_.  
  
And it totally was.

 _Barista Boyfriend_ was, simply put, a long series of second person fantasies wherein Bucky imagined Barista Boyfriend in different eras, occupations, and lifestyles. The most popular imagined him grinding his own coffee in a cabin up north: lumberjack BB. Bucky followed it with western campfire coffee in a copper pot: wrangler BB. At Halloween, tea with a brooding Heathcliff BB on a haunted moor. The all-consuming internet audience ate it up: 31 flavors of Barista Boyfriend. The editor of the website (saccharinely named bliss-missive.com,) loved the influx of traffic, and Bucky had a convenient excuse to sit in a smooshy couch and fantasize about the beautiful young man behind the counter. It was not without its perks. What better way to spend a Monday than watching a blonde Adonis dance to his silly playlists, sincerely wish every stranger a good morning, light up the entire goddamn room. Yes, it was fun, great fun, and certainly not the least bit heartbreaking. He didn’t feel the ache intensify as the weeks fell away, memorizing the designs on the boy’s tattooed sleeves, recognizing his voice above the din of dozens. The unreasonable dreamboat wasn’t growing on him; Steve was just a muse. Everyone loved the column. It definitely wasn’t killing Bucky very gently in 500 word increments. Not in the slightest. Above all else, Bucky knew where the careful line of reality was drawn. On one side, the writer: scowling and icy, long pirate hair tied in a knot, wrapped in layers of Brooks Brothers at all times of the year, world’s shittiest boyfriend. On the other side: a bright smiling farm-fed coffee dealer, blonde fade and blue eyes, neighborhood hero who probably made the thermostat of every room he entered stutter in sudden confusion. The stuff of daydreams separate from the one who sadly conjured them. A hard line. Oh, but a boy could _dream_. Besides: he was faithful to Brock, even if Brock wasn’t admitting the same.  
  
Work emails pinged; the dream was fading. He sipped his coffee. His phone buzzed and he snapped the laptop shut.  
  
**Natasha**  
BB bakery porn is excellent  
Strong hands, flour prints. This is some SMUT, son  
I can’t believe you get paid for this shit. 

 **Bucky**  
_very little, don’t be bitter_  
_y u mad_  
_did you fall in love_

 **Natasha  
** fuck off

 **Bucky**  
_eyyyy nailed it_  
  
**Natasha**  
If you nailed HIM maybe these wouldn’t read so desperately piney  
Is bb there?  
can he read over your shoulder?  
FUCK HIM FUCK HIM FUCK HIM  
  
**Bucky**  
_nat omg  
this is not real  
bb does not even know my name _  
  
“Bucky, right?”  
  
“Jesus!” Bucky knocked his drink flat on the table, swooping up his laptop case with reflexes he didn’t know he possessed. “Ah, son of a fuck---”  
  
“Sorry, wow.” Barista Boyfriend in the goddamn flesh sopped up what he could with his bar rag. “That’s--- I’ll get you another one. Was it vanilla or cinnamon this morning?” he asked, picking up the capsized mug. Bucky wasn’t even processing how quickly this was happening.  
  
“Uhh. Cinnamon?”  
  
“Alright, sit tight.” Steve chuckled and slipped back behind the counter. “I didn’t mean to scare the shit out of you, I just thought I see you often enough to finally say hi before you took off again. I’m sorry,” the young man was smiling crookedly, shaking his head. Warm, wet coffee seeping through corduroy and the sudden adrenaline slowed Bucky’s senses to a halt. Steve looked up at him. “Not a great ice breaker, huh?”  
  
“I--- don’t apologize, that’s on me. It’s literally on me, I guess--- not your fault though, business stuff. I was zoned out, don’t worry about it.” Words tumbled out as he tried to shake the mental fog. Bucky wadded up his napkins and grabbed his laptop bag, following the barista to the counter and taking a bar seat. “You’re Steve?” He furrowed his brow and feigned uncertainty.  _Give me my fucking Oscar_ , he thought. _I’d like to thank absolutely no one, and definitely not Natasha Romanov_. Steve smiled.  
  
“Yessir,” he tapped his name tag. “Coffee spiller extraordinaire. You want another scone, too?”  
  
“I probably shouldn’t.” Bucky frowned. Barista Boyfriend surely remembered he’d already had two. “I mean, yes, obviously, they’re stupid delicious, but they probably take years off my life.” Steve shrugged.  
  
“Maybe, but they’re years off the back end.”  
  
“Sure, and _padding_ to _my_ back end,” Bucky said, unable to stop his scowl. Steve eyed him challengingly.  
  
“What kind of a monster doesn’t like big back ends? C’mon, have another one. I made this batch, I’m kind of proud.” Bucky blinked. Ass innuendo aside, this was too much to process. Steve _baked_ the things? Did Bucky's column just predict the future?  
  
“You? You’re the _baker_?” he asked. Steve nodded, sliding a new latte mug towards him very slowly, a scone sitting innocently beside in an obvious gesture.  
  
“I am indeed a Renaissance man.” Steve smiled too warmly and held Bucky’s gaze too long. A customer approached the till and Steve snapped to, knocking on the counter before leaving him. “Enjoy, Buck.”  
  
“Thanks!” Bucky responded just a moment too late. He felt like he couldn’t blink, couldn't breathe quite right. The fourth wall, or whatever literary barrier he'd constructed, came crashing down around his ears as Steve Rogers had said hello. He slid his phone from his pocket.  
  
**Bucky**  
_Nvm he does know my name  
NAT _  
  
**Natasha**  
wait what  
does he know you have a HUGE INTERNET BONER FOR HIM  
what a breakthrough  
I’ll see you at home later I’m getting on the train  
  
**Bucky**  
_I’m gonna have to pay in cash for the rest of my life_  
  
**Natasha**  
wut  
  
**Bucky**  
_my last name’s on my credit card  
he’ll google me  
and know I write the thing  
no  
he doesn’t read it  
he reads newspapers  
he doesn’t read blogs  
I hope.  
this never occurred to me?  
no no no _  
  
Bucky panicked as he realized these things, texting faster than he thought himself capable. The music had switched to Billie Holiday and Steve was happily chatting with the girl who’d just gotten a huge black coffee to go; she looked like an art student. Considering it, Bucky might believe they went to school together and he filed away an idea for a future column. The cinnamon latte was overwhelming his senses; on high alert he felt like he could feel spices. Maybe he’d write that idea right now, Barista Boyfriend the struggling artist, just to keep his mind off of this weird development: Barista Boyfriend keeps dipping his paintbrush in his coffee by accident, Barista Boyfriend has hands dappled with color that touch your cheeks and neck like---  were he and Steve going to be friends?! _Holy shit??_ No. No, that couldn’t happen. He practically invented Steve anew each week for an entire internet audience, they couldn’t be friends. He felt like the whole cafe could see him panicking. Nat didn’t respond for another half-hour, probably in transit, and Bucky furiously tapped away at his laptop. The seat at the bar wasn’t nearly as comfortable as his smooshy sofa but the view was infinitely better... and they were friends now, so it would be rude not to. The third scone was even better than the first two. Did Barista Boyfriend--- Steve, did Steve give him that for free? For knocking over his coffee? That was the cutest meet-cute of them all! His pants were a fucking mess! He was reeling. He snapped his laptop shut and Steve looked over at him as he handed a medium drip to a hurried older man.  
  
“Finished your scone?” he asked. _Inhaled_ , Bucky thought. _Stress-eating. Steve. Barista Boyfriend._  
  
“Yeah, how much do I owe you?”  
  
“Nothing, it was a bad one. Too much butter for normal backsides.” Steve winked. That asshole _winked_. “You taking off, Hamilton?”  
  
“Hamilton?” Bucky repeated. He’d heard the album once or twice in Steve’s rotation. It was not a bad compliment. _This guy was complimenting him. His character was flirting.  
_  
“Prolific writer, kind of a punk, just like you. You're like a machine over there, squinting and tapping. You writing the Great American Novel or what?” Blood rose to Bucky’s cheeks and somehow he felt like he wanted to fight this dude; the banter was making him light-headed. Was that normal attraction? Were they going to knock each other around and then kiss about it? He would write that later, he decided. No, he wouldn't. _Jesus_.  
  
“Who, me? No, I’m the one writin' scathing Yelp reviews to ruin your business.”  
  
“Well then I’m not sorry I ruined your pants, ya jerk.” Steve folded his arms.  
  
“My pants will get over it.”  
  
“Will you put me in it?” Bucky’s throat tightened just a little and Steve obliviously wiped the counter where the scone plate had been. “Your book.” His book. Of course. A thing he would write, because he was a writer, and wrote things, and wasn't suddenly totally aware that his dick wanted to join the conversation but was trapped in a wet, dismal corduroy prison.  
  
"My book? Keep giving me free scones and I might have to," he managed somewhat smoothly in recovery. Steve considered it.  
  
“Deal. And,” the barista admitted, “for the record, I _am_ sorry about your pants.”  
  
“Shit happens. Someday they’ll forgive you.” Bucky smiled, but winced as he turned to go. It sounded so dumb as he heard himself say it. _Smooth as silk, Fonz_ , he muttered as he pushed out the door without looking back. The words echoed in his head. _Shakespeare made dick jokes_ , he thought forgivingly. _You can overuse the pants situation. Writer’s license._  
  
Bucky unlocked his bike and checked his phone. Nat was home and got his text barrage.  
  
**Natasha**  
_I’ll get a bottle of wine to calm your ass down_  
  
**Bucky**  
Put a straw in it, I’m going to get hammered!!!  
  
**Natasha**  
_That bad?_  
  
**Bucky**  
HE KNOWS MY NAME  
HE BROKE THE FOURTH WALL, MY OWN CHARACTER TALKED TO ME  
I EITHER HAVE TO DIE OR MARRY HIM  
  
**Natasha** **  
** Two bottles

* * *

Bucky slumped into the coffee shop the next morning like he had seen, fought, and exorcised an army of ghosts. After a long night of drinking and catching up with Nat, staying in the apartment for breakfast as he usually did on very early Tuesday mornings was out of the question. He would end up crawling into bed and he’d never get through all the copy he had been assigned. He could go straight into the office, but couldn’t stomach the idea. He took his hangover and his work to the coffee shop, not altogether unaware that he would get another day to deal with real life Barista Friend (he’d amended the title in his head; if he had to interact with his own character they would at least be congenial.) Maybe he would just expand his Independent Writing hours, make it two days a week. Steve had picked up on this schedule change and seemed pleasantly surprised to see him, not that Bucky needed his delusions stoked. They were growing like weeds, and Steve greeted him with a smile as he filled the bakery case.  
  
“Two days in a row? Is it my birthday?”  
  
“Is it? I didn’t get you a gift,” Bucky croaked. Steve crossed his arms over his chest, apron puckering over a soft grey shirt. Very soft, Bucky thought it seemed. He tossed that thought immediately in the mindtrash. _Fuck_.  
  
“That’s fine, you can write me one someday.”  
  
“You don’t even know what I write," Bucky pointed out, his bag sliding from his shoulder though he didn't possess the willpower to re-position. His body was still getting over the coup d'etat of waking up.  
  
“I have good intuition.”  
  
“How about limerick. There once was a boy named Steve---” Bucky scrubbed his hands over his face, the light still burning his eyes, “---whose cafe I can’t seem to leave, he gives me free shit, while my lazy ass sits, hungover like you won’t believe.”  
  
“Bravo! I knew you were talented.” The blonde beamed. A woman came in behind Bucky and approached the till. “Sam?” Steve’s manager slipped behind him on the way to the sink and clapped him on the back, a sort of I-Got-This gesture. Steve turned back to Bucky. “Sit down, I’ll bring you something. Jesus, man, hungover like this on a _Tuesday_!” Steve’s laugh resonated like a church bell as he set to work, Sam hovering at the steamer. Bucky didn’t want to move; his stomach was a warzone and his head a very consistent nagging throb. But Steve was alive and awake and making him something special. Bucky couldn’t have written a dialogue like that if he tried. He fell into his favorite couch and recounted the evening as best he could. Nat had two generous bottles of shitty red wine waiting for them, the kind that cost seven dollars with a twist off cap but still hit you in the face like a disappointed Italian grandma and taste like communion. He remembered a vivid image of Natasha smiling too sadly over her glass, glass number five? It might have been five. Neither of them had trouble holding their liquor when they went toe-to-toe over something hard and clear, but wine was more fun in spite of feeling so much worse on the recovering end. Bucky in his pajama pants cross-legged at the coffee table rested his head on the cool glass. It was fun until it wasn’t, when things got too real.  
  
“How are things with _Brock_ ,” she asked, untying her red bun and settling in to the couch. Brock displayed all the qualities that Natasha would easily assign a barely acceptable human: he cat-called, he disrespected customer service, and he downed energy drinks named after snakes. She was rarely subtle about her distaste. Bucky shrugged.  
  
“Low-key.”  
  
“The _fucking_ doesn’t sound low-key, but okay, sure,” Natasha said with a pointed sip of wine. Bucky ducked the idea.  
  
“I thought we had a no kink-shaming rule. No discussion of kinks at the dinner table.”  
  
“Okay but if your kink is dudes who don’t care about you---”  
  
“We’re not talking about Brock tonight," Bucky cut her off. And… she must have dropped it, because there was a general fog where this memory ought to be, because instead he told Natasha all about Barista Boyfriend, how he spoke to him, how sweet he was, and how anxious Bucky had suddenly become.  
  
“You flirted back,” she pointed out. Bucky hesitated, running a hand through his hair.  
  
“No, I mean. I did, a little. But he’s my character, Nat. Like how could I not?” His tone was fond if slurred. Nat wrinkled her nose.  
  
“Your _character_?”  
  
“Yeah. I feel like--- like he’s my child. My precious, handsome, stubborn asshole child.”  
  
“I’m gonna have to no-kinks-at-the-dinner-table that one, James.”  
  
“Nat,” he laughed. “No, I dunno. Why even worry about it, right. Fantasy Man is a Fantasy.”  
  
“You seem plenty worried about it. That’s why we’re having this wine,” she reminded him.  
  
“Right, sure. But. Anyway, he’s probably straight, or has a perfect boyfriend that deserves him. Like Tom Hardy.”  
  
“Hard pass,” Nat said. Bucky couldn’t even fathom.  
  
“God, how can you live with how wrong you are?” He snorted. Natasha shook her head.  
  
“You’re drunk and you have a crush. Like, school-boy, blinding, deafening crush.”  
  
“But---”  
  
“No, I’m gonna be honest, James. You’re a smooth operator: Mr. Dancefloor, Mr. One-night Stand. You write Choose Your Own Pornventures for fun. And I think you don’t want to put him in the Pieces of Ass category, and you should probably think why. For real. Like maybe about how he deserves Tom Hardy but you deserve Brock Rumlow.”  
  
“Oh fuck off, this is all easy to say that when you have Clint, you have your--- your soulmate or---” Bucky’d slurred. He’d also shouted a bunch of other things that he now didn’t remember, and when he woke up unceremoniously at 5 on the couch there was a whiskey glass next to him (which, Jesus, that couldn’t have been a worse idea following that much wine,) and he’d at some point in the evening changed his profile picture to a screencap of Ron Swanson saying “your house isn’t haunted, you’re just lonely.” Nat was long gone, her morning routine apparently undisturbed by residual alcohol effects. He probably needed to apologize to her.  
  
**Bucky**  
_I said something mean, didn’t I_ _  
__I have the worst hangover on planet asshole if that helps_ _  
__I’m sorry_

He noticed, then, that Nat wasn’t the most recent message he’d sent. Last night, he’d sent several incoherent texts to Brock. He shouldn’t have. God, he shouldn’t have. _God, no._ Steve set a mug of green tea and a plate of plain toast on the low table in front of Bucky’s couch and sat down opposite him.  
  
“You gonna be okay? Jokes aside?” he asked. Bucky let his head fall into his hands.  
  
“My roommate and I accidentally drank a lot of wine, not that you needed to know that.” He heard a buzz on his phone and made no move to check it; could be either of them. Steve pressed.  
  
“Does that happen a lot?”  
  
“Yes and no.” The slumping writer sighed and reached for the warm mug, unable to drink it just yet. “We needed to get a few things out in the open. So we fought it through and went to bed.”  
  
“That’s usually a good thing. Unless you got personal,” Steve offered. Bucky registered that this was a real conversation they were having and was just too exhausted to back out of it.  
  
“Me? Always.”

“Ouch. I’m sorry.” Here, Bucky had to smile, because his auto-response to that would typically be ‘it’s not your fault.’ And not that Barista Boyfriend started the fight, but he kind of did.  
  
“Nah, she and I have been through a lot together, it will be fine," he said instead. "I’ll tell her she was right, because she always is, and it’ll be fine.”  
  
“Sam’s like that,” the blonde said, gesturing over his shoulder at the young man running the counter presently. “Awesome roommate. But very level-headed until he’s not, and usually because I left shit in the sink.”  
  
“Like a barbarian,” Bucky finished. He shook his head, breathing the steam from the mug and going soft focus in the jasmine. Steve laughed and it was like a goddamn angel choir. _Bucky, wake up. Wake up, Bucky._  
  
“You too? Jesus, I’m only human! I wash dishes all day, can’t a guy catch a break?”

“Not on a busy Tuesday mornings, I’m sure,” Bucky hinted and Steve shot up from the couch, as if suddenly he realized he was on the clock. Big dope. “Thank you for the toast, though. How much do I owe you?”  
  
“I can put it on your Tragic Writer tab.”  
  
“Please let me pay you," Bucky croaked, "I’m gonna be here doing work for a bit, I’ll go crazy if you let me have this shit for free. Makes me uncomfortable.”  
  
“As you wish,” Steve shrugged. “$6.12 if you’re feeling right and just.” Bucky took a ten out of his wallet and slid it across the table, mumbling something about making up the difference. “Woah. Keep tipping like that and you can stay forever.”  
  
“Is that a promise?” Bucky glanced up in time to see Steve blush as he took the bill. He smoothed his apron unnecessarily.  
  
“Well, yeah. Umm. If you need anything? I’ll be back there, like always.” He retreated past Bucky to the counter, busying himself with a new customer and keeping his head down, smiling all the while. Bucky felt a pit in his stomach wholly unrelated to the the night’s alcohol. The beautiful barista might actually like him. The blonde beach volleyball-looking hunk of golden retriever that he objectified on a weekly basis for capital gain might be a human with feelings that reached further than his dick, unlike Bucky. The kind, toast-making, worry-knitting (was he singing along to Carole King right now?) Barista Boyfriend who cared, considered, and remembered, unlike Bucky. Bucky was going to be sick.    
  
**Natasha**  
_I also regret the wine._ _  
__You’re in bad shape, Barnes._ _  
__In a couple of ways._  
  
Bucky groaned and let his head fall back onto the couch. He was glad business started to pick up, because he was at least sixty percent certain Steve would not look up and check on him for a while, and see him in this state of emotional undress. Steve Rogers wasn’t for him. James Barnes, infamous at the editors’ round table for remarks like “ _you can say tits exactly once per cover; there is a tits allowance and you have to be wise about it,_ ” and “ _always go dick over penis,_ ” found himself incapable of entertaining anything but a saccharine daydream of a real relationship. He’d gone so far to the right he popped out on the left.  
  
He’d been Dark Side for too long. It wasn’t a fair match.  
  
The match he dreamed about, the match he was so head-over-heels about that he wrote self-insert romance porn, couldn’t possibly make the leap into reality. It was a non-starter. It would hurt everyone. It would hurt him. His poor, pure, Barista Boyfriend. He had to be better about these interactions; he was going to corrupt him. His most beautiful thing.  
  
When Steve came to unnecessarily take away the toast plate and refill his mug with hot water, Bucky didn’t even look up from his computer. It took some doing. He typed faster than ever before. His morning edits were more cutthroat, economical. He felt mean. Scott from marketing emailed him, “ _jesus christ, the last time I felt this emasculated first thing on a Tuesday morning was high school phys ed._ ” He said Bucky was really “ _in the zone._ ” Bucky agreed. His head was pounding and his heart was full of dirt. And when he finished his workload, he didn’t see why he couldn’t finish up those little plot starters for his other column before heading to the office, being time-efficient and all that.  
  
_Wouldn’t that be nice?_ he finished once again. And as his eyes flitted towards the counter and met Steve’s for a broken moment, he very nearly let himself think, _yes_.  
  
_God, but it couldn't. It can't._  
  
_Can it?_

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's column is based on an excellent series at The Toast, "If X Were Your Y." Highly recommend; 10/10. Stanley Tucci, expect my proposal of marriage any day.


	2. Authorial Intent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The writer attempts to navigate his two worlds: the one he wrote, inhabited by a character he loves and thought he knew, and a bleak reality with the one he knows and thought he loved. Bucky's a piss-poor navigator.

If _Barista Boyfriend_ was too good to be true, Bucky’s Actual Boyfriend (who would never call himself a boyfriend because he liked saying “ _fuckbuddy_ ,” which wasn’t _not_ a red flag, Nat pointed out,) fell on the opposite end of the spectrum: too Real to be Good. Brock was good in bed, but awful at feelings. It wasn’t worth explaining, Bucky would insist to Natasha when she looked at him dead-eyed over cereal when Brock left in the mornings, in a way that managed to say both “ _why, Bucky?_ ” and _“Bucky, why?”_ She claimed she could smell “scumbag” coming off him in waves, and Bucky always told her that was just Gucci Guilty.

But Bucky was his, and he had to remind himself he was lucky, that he needed to try harder to deserve such a devilish partner in crime who probably loved him. Really, he probably did. Maybe. Strong maybe. Brock wouldn’t say so out loud, certainly, because he was the target demographic of Bucky’s shitty Man Magazine. Bucky felt he was always saying the wrong things to Brock, and desperately trying to keep him around. Being a writer didn’t necessarily make Bucky good at communicating. But that was all well; they were both flawed, and fit nicely together. Especially in bed. (There was a reason the eggplant emoji was the most used on his phone, and for Nat, the frowning cat the second-most.)  
  
But Bucky’s romantic imagination had been working overtime, so something misfired that night when Brock had showed up at the apartment, that same something that told Bucky that he was wanted, chosen, and needed by Brock Rumlow for something bigger, more important than the sex that seemed to magnetize him without rhyme or reason. So he gave himself over, hoping he’d figure out what that was this time. When it didn’t shine like a beacon, when Brock used him up and called him things that would earn your mouth a bar of soap in grammar school, he felt the cold comfort of a reminder: this he was worth. Exhausted and dying to be held, Bucky waited. Words pressed at his throat: he wanted to ask if exclusivity was something they were ever going to discuss. Brock was smoking, satisfied. The space between them had its own echo.  
  
“Hey. Brock?”  
  
“Not now, huh? You gotta ruin a perfectly good glow.” Bucky felt himself shrink, even slightly. He swallowed, and apologized. He waited, but couldn’t stop himself.  
  
“So much for pillow talk, huh?” Bucky teased, half-smile trying. Brock exhaled, exasperated.  
  
“You don’t seem to think so.”  
  
“I mean no, but--- Brock, what are we doing?” The words fell out of Bucky before he could filter them, rearrange them, edit them for the right audience. Brock looked at him sidelong.  
  
“What are you talkin’ about.”  
  
“You and me, I mean. Are we something?”  
  
“You beggin’ for my cock ain’t nothing, dolly, now is it.” Brock put his cigarette out on the nightstand and hit the lights. “Sure as hell ain’t nothing.” As he curled around Bucky, finally, he murmured himself off to sleep. “ _Mine_ isn’t nothing. Mine is enough, huh.” When Brock’s phone lit up on the nightstand three times in the next hour while Bucky couldn’t bring himself to sleep, he wondered just how ‘mine’ he was. Brock left the next morning, and Nat watched him go without offering him any cereal. _His, his, his_ echoed in Bucky’s head when he heard the door slam. He heard his own voice: _please stay._ Brock’s: _give me a reason to_. He heard Steve’s: _you gonna be okay?_ He heard Nat’s: _why, Bucky?_ and he wanted to go back to sleep. He didn’t feel that usual icy emptiness, but he did feel sticky. If anyone had told him growing up that sticky was an operative term in Major Adult Feelings, he would have saved himself a good bit of trouble worrying how it would all shake out. It was just sticky.  
  
Bucky told himself all the details of the "Brock and his Magnetic Dick" problem were inconsequential; delusional romantic love was not the focus of his life. Work, success, and personal fulfillment: those were the goals. Sometimes with dicks! That’s Life! So he channeled what wasn’t important to Brock (sharing, teaching, doting, commitment, loyalty) into his Monday columns. Compartmentalizing! A healthy pastime!  
  
So healthy, in fact, and definitely not consuming, that _Barista Boyfriend_ published an unprecedented three columns by Wednesday evening: baker, artist, and punk band dreamscapes (Bucky got ambitious with that last one, as Steve played an entire Weezer album that afternoon. He even threw in an almost unnoticeable Hamilton reference because he couldn’t goddamn help himself and something was obviously wrong in his head, _like serial killers who leave hints because they want to get caught_ , he told himself, which was only slightly melodramatic.) By Thursday, Buzzfeed had picked him up and put out a listicle: Top Ten Secret Day jobs of Your Barista Boyfriend. They included photos of gorgeous dudes and coffee suggestions (a great idea, he thought,) with every snippet. Traffic tripled, and even the first few columns published four months ago got an extraordinary number of hits as new readers went back in the archives. It was a nice feeling. Bucky didn’t feel the need to go back to the Birdhouse, but he thought about it. He thought about it a lot.  
  
And when he was feeling too high, too swoony and unrealistic, he texted Brock: things that would make his mother spit on the sidewalk, things that didn’t make him proud. But they grounded him in reality. Sometimes they slapped him in the face with reality’s dick, but nonetheless.  
  
But the end of the week pulled at Bucky like taffy, to the brink of tearing before folding him back over himself only to be stretched again. He thought about that image a lot, which was not great for his creative writing. Taffy Man, the Overwrought, made himself of shitty metaphors. At the corner store he saw his work on a cover spread and winced. _This is the art you’ve been reduced to, writer: trashy man magazines and juvenile internet columns_. Two audiences: Brock and Nat. He supposed Nat might not read _Barista Boyfriend_ if he weren’t its author. But then again, it was definitely not something she would reveal to anyone, either. On that Saturday afternoon, he went to The Birdhouse, convinced he would start something new. He would not write about boyish daydreams, he would not write about sex trends, or sex friends, or whatever. He would write something from his heart, something beautiful and delicate that reflected himself better. And because of this, there was no reason to interact with Steve; that was today’s unspoken rule. He was going cold turkey on Steve Rogers, and it was going great. He found himself staring down a double-chocolate muffin, fingers poised and ready to type something magnificent, he could feel it, and what it felt like was white noise. Steve picked up two empty mugs from a table nearby.  
  
“Are you trying to eat that muffin or intimidate it?” He shook Bucky from the trance, all glow and warmth in the sunshine. Whatever effort Bucky’d made to distance himself today were long forgotten. No need to be rude. He breathed out again.  
  
“Writer’s block,” he said with a frown. “I thought I’d try something different today and I’m afraid I might be a one-trick pony.”  
  
“Huh. Well, is it a good trick?” Steve mused, looking down at the blank word document. Bucky shook his head. “Do you need a prompt?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Like a warm-up challenge. That’s how we used to loosen up in drawing class, just put the pencil to work for a little while, not worry about results.” Steve looked like he wanted to sit down but kept scanning the shop; too much to do.  
  
“You’ve got shit to do,” Bucky gave him the obvious out. All he wanted to do was give this kid a bouquet of outs: get out, go away, stop humoring me. But no, his character-made-flesh seemingly knew better. Barista Boyfriend stayed put, conceding without relenting.  
  
“Okay, granted, but here’s the challenge. Write about Peggy, girl at the counter. You can’t use the words woman, brunette, or beautiful.” Bucky scoffed. “Do it. You’re not doing anything else. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes. Oughtta have ten pages, at the rate you type.” Steve picked up the muffin and playfully tossed it with his free hand. “You can have this back when you’re done.”  
  
_Fuck, he’s cute. Who does that? Who does shit like that. Fucking cute. You created this monster, James Barnes. That is your fantasy. You crossed the streams. You fucking idiot._  
  
**Brock**  
u free 2nite??  
  
_Jesus_. The accompanying dick pic was as sloppy as his intentions. Bucky turned his phone over on the table and even slid it a few inches further away from him. _Brilliant timing, Brock._  
  
Bucky looked over to the girl, to Peggy, shaking residual R-rated thoughts. She dunked an Earl Grey tea bag pointedly in a low-rimmed cup without taking her eyes from Steve as she addressed him, something sly to quirk the corners of her perfectly red lips. It was this season’s bold trend, but she wore it like God intended it for her alone. Bucky had seen her in the cafe many times before. Once, in fact, she even inspired an entry for Barista Boyfriend, when Bucky mused that she and Steve looked conspiratorial, possibly spies. They were both impossibly lovely to look at. But then, his mind was wandering. Back to Peggy. She reminded Bucky of a valentine. Not the modern kid’s valentines, with super-heroes that folded in the center and sealed with a sticker. But more like a simple red velvet ribbon, or a poem very carefully copied on white paper with an inkwell pen. She struck him as the type that would consider such romantic notions an impractical luxury but might relish them all the same. Peggy wasn’t wearing her smart weekday suit but a sweet patterned blouse and cardigan; couldn’t you just take a girl like that out dancing, his father’s voice seemed to say over his shoulder. The blouse had little elephants on it. Bucky smiled detailing it; the girl with the elephant blouse. Steve would glance over to watch him type every once in a while; he looked anxious. _Is this your big secret, Barista Boyfriend?_ Bucky wondered. Her hair (he couldn’t say brunette, but god, he’d shoot himself if he said chocolate, and all he could think about was that goddamn muffin waiting for him) held silky curls pinned in ways he couldn’t divine. What he wouldn’t give to hear her voice over the low murmurs of the morning, over the impossibly timed Minnie the Moocher on the sound system. He knew from previous mornings that she was British, an accent too natural to fake. Peggy, the woman of a thousand eras. He could see those sharp eyes in the courts of kings, soapboxing revolution on Boston Common, starting fights in saloons, enchanting the screen beside Charlie Chaplin. He half expected her teacup to stay perfectly Hollywood white when she brought it down from her lips, though she left a red calling card. He mused on like that for paragraphs, outlining her frame without being over-generous, reminding himself to be honest about her visible flaws, to illustrate Peggy genuinely to a stranger that might conjure her on a page a thousand miles away. He became affectionate ten minutes in; Peggy was a sweetheart of a muse. She was filling out a crossword, laughing and reading aloud clues to Sam and Steve, who buzzed in as best they could between espressos and croissants, cracking jokes. The three of them were a sweet little trio. It felt easy.  
  
And Steve? Steve was in his element, shining and starry. Could the sun glow brighter? For Peggy, maybe he did. Bucky felt an unexpected sadness where resentment could have easily been. Did anyone look at him the way Steve looked at Peggy? Was Bucky a red velvet ribbon to anyone else? He surprised himself with that sudden selfishness. Steve looked over at him, catching his eye and stilling momentarily before tapping his watch with a smirk. Fifteen minutes gone. Bucky lifted his hands from the keyboard and waved them. Steve had a few more customers, but Bucky had a distinct feeling he’d find a minute to visit. On the horrifying chance he might want to read it, Bucky skimmed over his passage, making sure it didn’t accidentally veer and wax-poetic about the blonde American Dream himself. He felt a soft adoration for Peggy as he combed his own words. He could see what Steve saw in her. She _was_ beautiful. But more than that, and just as devastating, he realized that _Steve thought so first_. And he suddenly saw her in two lights: rose-colored, as the young man behind the counter clearly did, and a sickly envious green. Peggy, the timeless valentine. The luckiest girl in the world.  
  
“Challenge complete?” Steve called over the steamer. Bucky looked up.  
  
“Challenge complete. Release the hostage.” The chocolate muffin was sitting stalwart on a saucer next to Miss Peggy Valentine herself, noir beauty, heiress, picnic-packer, tree-climber, magical nanny, hitman, queen. Steve picked up the treat.  
  
“Only if you’ll let me read it.”  
  
“Deal.” Bucky held out his hand. “Muffin.”  
  
Steve held the laptop up to eye-level as he stood behind Bucky, who tried not to watch him read it like he was waiting for the dog biscuit. Even then, it would have been impossible to describe Steve’s eyes dancing over the text. The simple way to put it, would have been “ _Steve Rogers is in love._ ” Bucky wanted to crawl into that muffin and die there.  
  
“That’s her, alright. It’s perfect.” Steve let out a huff of breath, handing Bucky back the computer. “You passed the test. You’re an excellent writer. That’s--- that’s it. That’s the last thing I ever want to read.”  
  
“An easy challenge. Lovely subject.” Bucky admitted though it hurt to say out loud. Steve searched his expression for barely a second, a worry line just flickering over his brows. He shook it away.  
  
“Well it’s a good thing you’ve never had an argument with her,” Steve joked, covering. “She’s ruthless.”  
  
“Noted,” Bucky said through a mouthful of muffin. Steve stood there for another awkward moment, just looking at him. Bucky didn’t need to know why. _If you’re wondering whether or not I accurately observed your heart-eyes, I did,_ he thought. _Your cover’s blown, Steven Rogers, a writer sees it all, even this shitty broken one._  
  
“Um. Did that help any?” Barista Boyfriend asked with what was maybe a creeping blush. Bucky crumpled the muffin wrapper; it wasn’t worth it, he decided. He shut off his heart.  
  
“It did, I think. I wasn’t writing before, and now I am.” Steve melted with relief.  
  
“That’s great! See, that silly stuff works. Hey, can I let her read it? It’ll destroy her. She needs to see it. Please?” Bucky desperately wanted to leave, but ‘sure’ slipped out of his mouth before he knew it and Steve had his laptop in front of Peggy in a heartbeat. Sam eagerly read over her shoulder.  
  
“What exactly am I--- well, this is very flattering,” Peggy stammered, suddenly hyper-aware of herself in space and touching her hair. “I feel a little odd about all this. Can you at least introduce me?” Steve jabbed her in the shoulder.  
  
“He captured you. To the letter. I agree with every word,” Steve insisted. Peggy rolled her eyes but blotted her lips primly with a napkin just to make sure they were still red and Steve laughed at her. _Fucking cute_ , Bucky thought. _Glad I could help, Steve._  
  
“This is the next great American author. This is Bucky. Bucky: Peggy.” Steve beamed with a grand gesture, the proudest parent. Peggy nodded.  
  
“You may need a better pen name than that, Mr. Bucky.”  
  
“Unless you’re writing porn,” Sam cut in, “in which case, definitely do Steve’s next!” Steve rolled his eyes, full-body blush in high gear.  
  
“He’s got his own projects,” he hissed. Bucky sighed.  
  
“Yeah, I think I’m done creeping on people for one day, thanks. Can I have that?” Steve put the laptop back in his hands. Bucky couldn’t help but notice Peggy and Sam exchange a glance. He was suddenly exhausted and confused and done playing the game. He looked pointedly at Steve. “We done?”  
  
“I didn’t mean to--- sorry about that. I shouldn’t--- I just wanted to show you off. Umm,” Steve carded a hand through his hair and Bucky couldn't help but want to deck him. “I’m sorry.” His golden retriever tail was tucked so far between his legs that Bucky felt like a monster. _All because you can’t handle your fucking emotions, Barnes. You hurt his feelings._ Worse, he heard a shade of Brock there that didn’t belong. We done? He couldn’t backpedal fast enough.  
  
“We’re cool.” He lied. “I’m gonna get back to work.”  
  
“Sure, sure.” Steve looked over his shoulder; Sam and Peggy were both conspicuously working on the crossword. “Yeah. Me too. Godspeed.”  
  
Bucky didn’t say anything else that day. Even on a Saturday, he pulled up projects from work, just to keep his mind occupied. He wanted to leave the cafe, and also didn’t. It seemed more important that Steve not feel neglected, than Bucky not feel uncomfortable. He hated that he felt that, but what to be done. It wasn’t Steve’s fault that Bucky had a hole in his heart where feelings were supposed to go, a hole that he had makeshift patched with delusions and fairy tales. It wasn’t Steve’s fault that he wanted to be friends, that he wanted to get close to Bucky when all Bucky wanted to do was get further away. It wasn’t Steve’s fault that Bucky was sewn from cheap cloth and stuffed with trash. None of that was Steve’s problem. Bucky couldn’t stomach it. Steve was good, the best in the world. And envy didn’t look good on Bucky, he decided. It tasted like blood and pennies in his mouth when he re-read that paragraph about Peggy, Steve’s dreamgirl, and he deleted it entirely. The afternoon was not so easily undone.

* * *

  
Bucky spilled everything to Nat on the phone.  
  
“I don’t understand what the problem is,” she replied honestly. “You don’t want him. You told me you didn’t want him. He’s your _character_ ,” she parroted to him. Bucky was pacing under a parkway tree, his bike locked close by.  
  
“He is. I have no claim over him, I know that. I just--- can you believe he did that to me?”  
  
“Did what?”  
  
“Use me like that! Like I’m some kind of---”  
  
“Like Brock does?” Rage nipped at the corners of his eyes.  
  
“Natasha, this has nothing to do with Brock. Barista Boyfriend is not like Brock at all.”  
  
“Right. That’s my point. That’s why you’re mad, James.” And suddenly, Bucky didn’t have a response, which startled him. There was quiet on the line and Nat knew she was right. “You've known this kid in the real world for barely a week. It sounds like Steve thinks you’re very talented, and wants to be friends. And maybe you should stop asking him to be Barista Boyfriend and let him be Steve. If you can’t, then you need to get out of there.” Bucky stopped pacing and stared straight ahead. “You still there? James?”

“That’s sound advice, Nat. You’re right,” he replied, drained. "You're right." Her smile came through her tone on the other end.  
  
“Most people pay me handsomely for this kind of consulting. Family discount for you, though.”

On the bike ride home, Bucky resolved to give it another shot. Besides: he had a column to write, and audience waiting on him. He might let Nat down, or Brock down, or Steve and Peggy the Wondercouple down, but he wouldn’t let his internet friends down. He realized how that sounded, and he leaned into it. His internet friends only fed his ego and kept him happy, warm, and fat as a housecat. He owed it to them to see Steve Rogers again, so that is what he told himself when he woke up on Monday morning and found the will to get out of bed again.

* * *

  
“Hey, can I ask you somethin'?” Steve said that morning, taking away Bucky’s plate, remnants of a breakfast sandwich he didn’t ask for but Steve said he ‘definitely wanted, it’s named after Hemingway for a reason.’ Bucky worried his lip.  
  
“Sure. Shoot.” _Try to be friendly, try to be human._  
  
“What are you really working on?” Steve asked. Bucky had honestly predicted a much worse line of questioning; his sigh of relief wasn’t exactly hidden.  
  
“Right now? Editing. Magazine work.”  
  
“Oh!” Steve exclaimed. “Anything I’ve read?”  
  
“I sincerely hope not, unless you like objectifying women,” Bucky replied with a frown, shockingly honest. The barista huffed.  
  
“Seems like a waste. You’re so clever. You can do better than that.” Steve threw the compliment on the counter like it was a crumpled receipt. Bucky wanted to wrap himself in it, and die there. He didn’t know the first thing about Bucky, how could be possibly know what he was worth? _Pathetic, Barnes._ He didn’t know if that was Brock’s voice or his own.  
  
“Can I ask you something?” Bucky returned, curiosity and need straining his voice.  
  
“Yeah,” Steve smiled, drying ceramic mugs now. “Only fair.”  
  
“What did you think I was writing?”  
  
“Uhh,” Steve blushed. “Honestly? I entertained a lot of stupid ideas. Movie scripts, poetry… radical political pamphlets.” Bucky snorted.  
  
“Ah yes. I have that look about me, don’t I.”

“I really hoped not, though,” Steve smirked conspiratorially. “Better dead than red, _Buck_.”  
  
“Shoulda known it would be a dealbreaker for you, kid,” Bucky pouted dramatically, a sort of noir detective bit he couldn’t resist really playing up. He smoothed his hair back. “That’s alright, you’re better off without me, Stevie. Get out of my life while you still can. I’m bad news.”  
  
“What if I’m tough to dissuade?” Steve’s noir voice was so accidentally Hepburn it hurt Bucky to suppress his smile for the sake of the bit.  
  
“You might have to trust me, sweetheart.”  
  
“But that would be un-American!” Steve gasped, nearly breaking.  
  
“Touche. You do strike me as the stubborn, patriotic type. Give Uncle Sam my regards.” They were both laughing suddenly, Steve like he’d never been happier in his whole storied life, and Bucky felt his smile fade first. “Where’s Peggy today?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking. While he waited for Steve to finish steeping a tea for another customer, he tapped in the first few sentences of a Casablanca noir Barista Boyfriend. Of all the coffee shops in all the world…  
  
“Might have just made coffee at work. She’s a social worker.”  
  
“I imagine she’s great with children,” Bucky offered absently.  
  
“Yeah. She’ll probably adopt a hundred kids someday,” Steve smiled. Bucky blinked and considered it: a gaggle of children, and Peggy like Mother Ginger with little munchkins running out from underneath her absurd hoop skirt. Stupidly sweet.  
  
“Well, kids are expensive," he replied carelessly. "You know, all the eating and learning and growing they do. As if they’re fulfilling and lovable or something." Bucky continued tapping at Noir Boyfriend. He could tell Steve was watching him.  
  
“Do--- you want kids?” Bucky stopped typing mid-sentence.  
  
“It never crossed my mind.” It had crossed his mind plenty. It had crossed his mind four weeks ago, when he wrote Barista Boyfriend as a little league baseball coach. “You?”  
  
“I don’t know.” Steve was frowning at the counter now and blessedly, Sam the manager barked at him from the other end of the counter.  
  
“Rogers, c’mon, team player on Monday mornings, if it ain’t too much trouble!” Steve sprung into action, grabbing two new mugs for an order that Bucky missed entirely, though Steve seemed to miss nothing. “Not paying you to talk babies with bae, man.” Steve’s eyes widened slightly and he worked furiously, chuckling like it would cover the blush, and Bucky pretended that was a totally ordinary thing to say about friends. Just like it was totally normal to talk about having kids, out of fucking nowhere. He swallowed, dry and hard. _What are you doing, Buck._ Thankfully there were so many customers streaming in for that magical Monday lunch rush that Bucky was able to pack up his troubles and move to his favorite couch without asking what that had been about. He focused on his article, and the lunch crowd came and went. He was surprised to hear Peggy’s voice later, clear as a bell, like she was speaking directly to him. Or maybe it was God.  
  
“Steve, do you read _Barista Boyfriend_?” Bucky’s heart stopped. The world paused, and the devil himself turned from greater dastardly deeds just to listen with sadistic glee. _Here it is, James Barnes. Welcome to Hell._ Steve Rogers, actual Barista Boyfriend, chuckled as he sawed open a raisin bagel.  
  
“You’re not the first to ask,” he responded cryptically. Peggy chortled. Bucky made a point of typing very quickly, very focused, definitely not eavesdropping, tapping “WORDS WORDS WORDS” over and over again, typing anything, typing the lyrics to the song playing overhead. _You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes---_  
  
“I bet not. Oh, you _must_ read it, Steve. It’s astoundingly you. I think,” she quipped, and Bucky heard conspiracy in her voice, “he may even have your tattoos.” Bucky’s head swam. He heard everything in echoing stereo.  
  
“I wish I could tell you I haven’t even heard of it, but, yeah, I have.” Steve laughed, strained. “The log cabin one, a couple of others.”  
  
“And? How true?” Peggy pressed.  
  
“I can indeed chop wood. Probably wouldn’t fight a bear for you, though, Peg,”  
  
“Oh, you crusher of dreams, breaker of hearts. Better keep your voice down, though. Wouldn’t want all these sweet young ladies and gentlemen readers all around you to know your bb secrets.”  
  
“Sam wants to capitalize on it. Make themed drinks or something.”  
  
“That doesn’t sound like Sam.”  
  
“He thinks this is the funniest thing that’s ever happened.” _Oh, it’s funny alright._  
  
“Oh, well, that does sound like Sam. I’m sorry for all the attention, Steve.”  
  
“See, you know me better.” There was a smile in his voice finally. This had made him uncomfortable. God, he never meant to.  
  
“Someone has to keep you grounded through all this fame.”  
  
“That’s why you’re my best girl.”  
  
“Do _you_ think it’s you?”  
  
“Nah. I’m nobody’s barista boyfriend.”  
  
“Now that _is_ a shame.”

And then Bucky faded out, into a soft focus, some strange irreality where he floated above the coffee shop, among his ghostly internet readers and commenters, and they all looked down and pointed and said _that’s your boy!_ Bucky nodded said to them, _and not that it matters to anyone but that is his best girl_. Bucky tried not to notice when Steve spent his break chatting with Peggy at the counter. How she bumped his shoulder with hers as they laughed at some very closely shared joke. How he imagined she would fit perfectly snug beneath that shoulder, delicate hand splayed on his chest as they slept a peaceful Sunday morning in, making coffee at home for a change. And once, when Peggy looked over her shoulder at him and caught his eyes, Bucky held her there, suddenly bold and unwilling to shamefully look away. Peggy turned first. He would think about that look for the rest of the afternoon before tearing himself from the couch. Steve noticed.  
  
“All done for the day?”  
  
“Something like that,” Bucky said. He had all his things gathered in his arms. Peggy was gone.  
  
“Well, see you.” Steve brought the end of the sentence up but didn’t hide a disappointment there. Bucky carried a desperate rage between his brows as stalked out, ducking behind his hair to break visual from Steve when he passed the counter. Good, decent Steven Rogers, whose image he exploited, whose generosity and kindness he deceived, a young man with a normal life and a girl he loved who was absolutely perfect, a beautiful valentine for the purest heart. James Barnes, ruiner. Peggy read the column, and they both laughed about it to ease how awkward, how scary it was to be stalked like that. Steve was uncomfortable. Steve didn’t deserve it. James Barnes, interfering joke, garbage human. He crossed the streams. It was his own damn fault, and now the bleed was poisoning them all. He felt like a mean little goblin. Let the kids have their love. He thought about calling Nat, but his phone buzzed in his pocket and he knew exactly what his penance that night would be.

* * *

  
Brock slapped him on the ass before he caught an Uber home at 12:30, leaving Bucky naked and empty in the rumpled sheets. The streetlight threw orange beams across the ceiling, otherwise dark. Nat was at her boyfriend’s, the apartment sepulchral without her, and Brock’s heavy boots down the hall echoed in Bucky’s chest. Sub-human, was Brock Rumlow. Exactly the kind of relationship for James Barnes: men, ugly, reeking of sex and less than fifteen words between them that weren’t absolutely filthy. “Can’t take me home to mama if you want me to be Daddy,” he once said; remembering this made Bucky physically ill. T _hat’s him, Barnes. That’s your knight in shining armor. That’s reality_. He knew in the back of his brain, in a safe and quiet space, that a relationship shouldn’t feel this way, shouldn’t reduce him to a ragdoll. But what else was for him? Brock called him cheap and broken, a slutty misfit toy, his _baby_. He told him he loved him. He said it. And Brock was beautiful, this rugged gym rat, rotten to the very core. No substance, just like Bucky. It was a good match. Just like the good match of Business Girlfriend Peggy and Barista Boyfriend Steve, but in sharp relief. He shivered in the dark and heard Steve’s voice. _Seems like a waste. You can do better than that._ He covered his face with his hands and fought his welling eyes.  _You can do better than this._  
  
“But I don’t, Steve." He hiccuped in the darkness. " _I’m not._ ”


	3. Critical Analysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every story needs a ruthless edit. Bucky proves yet again he is not too close to kill his darlings, whether he wants to or not.

The most watched program on Natasha’s netflix account was a documentary called _Jiro Dreams of Sushi_. She loved the careful attention to detail, to quality, to the honor of an ancient and under-appreciated art form. There is constant, unrelenting dedication to routine in the pursuit of perfection. The sushi master’s life is his art. There is no detail that escapes him. He demands that same dedication from others. Suffer for your art, or the art will suffer. The throw of the film appealed to the part of Natasha governed by a ballerina’s training, and it appealed to the part of Clint that worshiped by eating. If he had his way, he would put entire sunsets and perfect rap verses and fluffy dogs and crunchy leaves all in his mouth. _Jiro Dreams of Sushi_ had the added benefit of putting Clint right the fuck to sleep in less than thirty minutes, and Nat found a perfect happy place between the soothing score, the ruby red fish, and the angelic snoozing face of Clint Barton. She knew the Japanese without reading the subtitles now.  
  
Tuesday morning, but only just barely, Brock Rumlow slunk out of Bucky and Nat’s apartment but she was across the city, trapped beneath Clint’s dead weight in her happy place. She didn’t hear Bucky’s broken sob through their shared wall, as she sometimes did, and she couldn’t knock softly to let herself in and sit at the foot of his bed, ask him what he needed. But something lit a tiny warning light in her mind; call it roommate intuition. She picked up her phone.  
  
**Natasha**  
we should try making sushi  
I bet we’d be good at it  
we could quit our jobs and start a sushi restaurant  
  
Bucky didn’t respond and she assumed he was with Brock. She looked at the screen. More than three texts was too many for a check-in, so she set the phone down on the knee opposite the one Clint had colonized. She poked at his cheek and he eased back into consciousness like a pregnant woman into a chair.  
  
“Oh--- no, ‘sit over? Did they win?” he croaked, rubbing his eyes.  
  
“Double-overtime, clutch touchdown in the last inning,” she said, brushing his hair into a little blonde peake. Clint groaned.  
  
“Sorry. That soundtrack is like a horse tranquilizer.” He yawned, stretching his whole body taut and dropping it limp in a relieving huff.  “What’d I miss?”  
  
“Bucky’s in a bad way,” she said suddenly. Clint quirked an eyebrow.  
  
“Jiro said that?” He adjusted the levels on his hearing aides and blinked bleariness away.  
  
“He’s seeing Brock more often, and---”  
  
“You hate that guy.”  
  
“---I do. And he’s not eating, and going in to the office more obsessively early, and he gives me this look sometimes like he’s dying to tell me something. And I ask, and he says it’s nothing. Also he’s got a serious crush on the guy he writes about for that blog, so that’s inconvenient.”  
  
“Blues. Textbook blues,” Clint sighed. “Bet it’s the guy you hate. His fault.”  
  
“Are you just saying that because I hate him?”  
  
“No. I mean, yes, that’s the only lead I have, but if the dude’s toxic then Bucky needs to shake him.”  
  
“I tried. We’ve had the same conversation over and over. Bucky never stops punishing himself,” Natasha said finally. Clint frowned.  
  
“What for?” Nat didn’t answer; her phone lit up just then.  
  
**Bucky**  
_Can you even imagine being so good at something that they make a documentary about you  
God_  
  
Nat showed the text to Clint.  
“He’s a good writer. And he has nice hair. Tell him that,” the blonde offered. “Does he want to come over? Maybe he just needs a reminder that his friends are decent even if his boyfriend isn’t, and also that his boyfriend is an animal.”  
  
**Natasha**  
Clint says you’re a good writer!  
  
**Bucky**  
_Aw Clint_  
  
**Natasha**  
Shouldn’t you be asleep  
or boning  
  
**Bucky**  
_No  
I should not  
hbu_  
  
“Tell him we’re boning right now. This very second.” Clint said, his head resting on her shoulder. “Tell him I’m great at it. Jiro levels of great. Artistry.”  
  
**Natasha**  
Clint says we’re boning rIGHT NOW  
  
**Bucky** **  
**_were you invited?  
or are you texting me because it’s so boring  
OHHHHH_

“Rude.” Clint burrowed his stubbled face into Natasha’s neck and she cuffed him in the chest, laughing. “He’s fine. I’m going to actual bed. You can drop in later. Invitation or not,” he said, waggling his eyebrows before heading for the bathroom. Nat smiled.  
  
**Bucky**  
_Steve's read Barista Boyfriend  
made him uncomfortable_  
  
**Natasha**  
Oh nooo  
bro that’s rough  
You talked to him about it?  
  
**Bucky**  
_FUCKNO  
I overheard it  
fucked me up nat_  
  
Natasha blinked. That was not the text she was expecting after midnight on a Monday. Or, a Tuesday. She had to be up early; Future Nat would be pissed if she stayed up much longer… but, Bucky.  
  
**Natasha**  
Do you want to call?  
  
**Bucky**  
_No go to bed_  
  
**Natasha**  
Write about it, then  
Write it away  
  
It was a strange line to walk, caring for James Barnes. He didn’t accept any care he couldn’t give himself, and sometimes she had to dress up her concerns like other matters entirely (when he got sick, for example, she would demand he rest, quarantine, and medicate in order to keep his germs from spreading to her. He obeyed because he hated the idea of inconveniencing her, and she was able to trick him into caring for himself. It was one tile in a mosaic of self-punishment, and she didn’t like using it against him, but she wouldn’t let him die of the flu, either.) This was advice that Bucky might follow: it didn’t involve bothering others, he felt marginally confident about his abilities, and he could self-medicate at his own pace. Natasha waited.  
  
**Bucky**  
_K goodnight_

* * *

  
Bucky thought about that: write it away. Sounded nice and simple, though it rarely was. He couldn’t help hear a singular line from Steve (goddamnit, he had bled into every thought,) Steve’s Hamilton soundtrack: _when my prayers to God were met with indifference, I picked up a pen, I wrote my own deliverance._ Christ, what a great line. He could get that tattooed across his whole face, he liked it so much. Natasha was thoughtful, and knew him better than he’d admit.  
  
So he dragged himself from the coldest place in the night and sat upright in bed, laptop glow stinging his eyes, and set his words to work.  
  
_The Worst that Could Happen_ _  
__  
__The Worst that Could Happen is Steve Rogers finds out I am the reason he feels uncomfortable at work. He learns I have betrayed his trust. I betrayed Steve Rogers, I threw him to the dogs._ _  
__  
__Steve would stop talking to me, Steve would actively dislike me, Steve would live a worse life having met me, Steve would be hurt and his relationship with Peggy might suffer. And Bucky? Bucky would never forgive himself. Bucky would be hurt, too, Bucky would live a worse life, too. He was already a mess, broken in places unfixable, a real lemon. Brock would leave him, for good this time, and nothing would hold him together and keep him from falling into the dark every night and choking on it every morning. He would feel scared, and alone. He would be alone. Again._  
  
That was an awful timeline. Very hyperbolic, he saw in writing, and a grammatical disaster, if he was being honest. It seemed a lot of fuss for a piece of internet amounting to nothing by a writer that wasn’t even a blip on the global radar. Sometimes (he reminded himself,) it was nice to know how insignificant he was, how at the very least he would never be to blame for the misaligning of stars, or the collapse of a galaxy. The world turned with or without him.  
  
That was the worst that could happen. And it would not. He re-read it, and deleted it letter by letter, but for that last part about the universe. He felt a strange calm thinking of the universe, so large, so forgiving, cradling him in its incalculable depth and not caring for Brock, for Steve, for these petty personal dramas, for the Ones Who Hurt Him in times before, for the young Bucky who’d been broken too many times to be properly fixed. Mother Universe: a character he’d never written or understood but felt in his heart. Something he trusted outside himself, and in.  
  
So he stepped as far back as he could, into the stars, and looked at these little darknesses in his world. But more importantly, he found himself wrapping paragraphs and paragraphs around the little lights and tiny hopes, and holding them up to the darkness in their glow. His own words told him to wait. They told him to listen to what the universe would tell him: change was coming for better or worse, and he could handle it. It was simultaneously Bucky’s best and worst writing.  
  
He sat up for four more hours like that, pouring and prying phrases from his heart and his gut onto a word document, and it was very clear that on two hours of sleep he was going to need to mainline caffeine to get through the workday. Having made some peace with Barista Boyfriend on the page, though maybe it was the lack of sleep that detached him just far enough from his anxiety, he felt emboldened to march into the Birdhouse Cafe and right up to Steve Rogers at the counter. Yesterday didn't happen. Steve smiled fondly in spite of the morning crowds and some truly unforgivable 90’s alt pop on the speakers.  
  
“Late night, Buck?” he asked, observing Bucky’s pallor right away when he finally made it to the front. Bucky nodded, impressed.  
  
“What gave it away?”  
  
“The eyes, dude, you look like a raccoon did thirty years of heroin. Did you sleep at all?” Steve asked and Bucky laughed too loud.  
  
“No, actually. Spent all night devising a perfect coffee order.”  
  
“Okay! Let’s hear it,” Steve said. Bucky hadn’t thought this joke through but in his depravity, even faking it seemed funny to him.  
  
“Okay, get ready. Are you ready? I lost hours and hours obsessing.”  
  
“I got this, you can count on me, sarge,” he saluted. Bucky cracked his knuckles.  
  
“Okay. I would like the largest black coffee to go that you can make me. I want it to be made of coffee beans. I want them at some point in the process, get this: to be ground. You gonna write this down, punk? I’m not done yet.” A girl behind Bucky in line did not get the joke and rolled her eyes with a heaving sigh. She was going to tip extra, just for this.  
  
“Oh, certainly sir, my mistake. Go on,” Steve smiled sideways and scribbled on a notepad next to the register. Bucky kept a sleep-hazy stoneface but his eyes revealed the laugh.  
  
“Right. I want it hot. I want it approximately the color of soil on the third day of spring after a light rain. No embellishments. Pure, perfect.”  
  
“Of course.” Steve nodded, taking copious notes. Bucky ran one hand carelessly through his hair. He felt downright playful.  
  
“Did I mention hot? That’s key. That cannot be compromised, Steve. Repeat that back to me, would ya, pal?” Steve held up the receipt, squinting at his own writing.  
  
“Okay, sir. I’ve got an extra large black drip to go. What name would you like on that?”  
  
“James Buchanan Barnes IV, Esquire.” Steve started to laugh but stopped immediately.  
  
“Is that--- is that your real name?”  
  
“Most of it,” Bucky grinned, and the barista lost it. Steve waved Bucky away from the order till and continued to laugh through his next customer. Sam prepped the coffee order for him at pick-up. He looked at Steve, beaming at Bucky, who smiled at his shoes.  
  
“James Buchanan Barnes IV, Esquire, I wanna get mad at you for holding up the line, but he moves twice as fast when he’s happy,” Sam said, popping a lid on the very generous cup of black coffee for Bucky. “You’re one cute son of a gun, JB, I’ll give you that. Have a nice day.” Bucky accepted his coffee and Sam gave him a pointed look. He never said an insincere word to anyone, in Bucky’s limited experience. He decided to take the compliment at face value. If it was a compliment, in fact, and not a thinly-veiled threat (also possible.) Bucky inhaled the steam. He felt good, and he brought that with him to work. Steve watched him go, but he didn’t see that. Sam did, and Sam rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time only that morning, and Sam set himself aside a cake pop for later, which he felt he’d already earned just by picking up Steve’s slack while the barista daydreamed. And he wished to God, midway through his pink treat, he prayed James Buchanan Barnes IV, Esquire, got his shit together somehow, some way, and, if it wasn’t too much trouble, God, by tomorrow before another morning rush at the latest, please and thank you and please one more time just to make sure you’re listening, God, because life is so short and Steve is so dense, please, please, cherry on top, Amen.

* * *

  
“Morning, Barnes.” Scott Lang was reading the news on his laptop when Bucky stopped by his desk for the traditional morning fistbump and check-in.  
  
“Lang. Good morning. Did you get the letter edits I sent through?” Bucky asked. Scott scrolled past World and ended on Entertainment news. Matt Damon did something cute, and Bucky didn’t bother to squint and find out.  
  
“Yeah, sunshine. Timestamped at 4:30 AM. Are you doing yoga or something? Gong meditation?” Scott said. Bucky winced.  
  
“Ah, shit. Timestamp. Gave myself away.” He took a long sip of coffee. Scott reclined in his rolling chair in a way that should have snapped it in half. Bucky waited eagerly for that day.  
  
“Jedi in training?” Scott offered.  
  
“Vampire,” Bucky said.  
  
“Can’t it be both? Can’t we have it all?” Bucky noticed Scott had taped up a few new pictures of his kid. _Cute_ .  
  
“Now you’re on to something. Write that story and maybe we’d have something interesting for next issue."   
  
“Aw, but where’s the tits in that?” Scott frowned.  
  
“Mine ain’t good enough?” Bucky palmed his own pecs and Scott snorted. “Tell Peter I’m gonna need something that lifts and separates.”  
  
“Hey, whose digits are those?” his officemate asked cheerily, gesturing to the Birdhouse coffee cup. Bucky took another sip.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Looks like someone wants to make you breakfast somewhere more _intimo_ ,” he said. Bucky hadn’t noticed; a phone number was scrawled beneath James Buchanan Barnes IV, esq. Ten digits, and Steve’s name.  
  
“Oh! Jesus, what the hell am I supposed to do with this?” he wondered aloud. Scott assumed this was directed at him.  
  
“Ball’s in your court, dude. Do whatever you want! Not like they’ve got yours to call you first, right?” Bucky looked at it closer; the numbers were a different handwriting for sure, and, if he were to guess, Sam’s.  
  
“Is it too early to text it?” he asked. Scott shrugged, picking up a packet of papers and his phone before heading to the hall.  
  
“They were pretty proactive. Two can play that game,” he said. “I don’t know, dude, I haven’t been in that world for three hundred years.” When he was gone and out of range, Bucky scrambled for his phone. _Take it easy, Barnes. Keep it light. Keep cool._ He at least managed to sit down at his desk before frantically entering the number into his phone and sending a message without thinking too hard about it. Boy, would Steve be surprised.  
  
**Unknown Number**  
_this coffee is the wrong kind of black  
I’m going to have to return it _  
  
_Too subtle?_ Bucky wondered. He tapped his fingers. He opened his laptop. He straightened two pieces of paper on his desk, the ones on top, whatever they were; he didn’t look. _S_ _teve’s a busy dude. Steve’s on shift!_ He shouldn’t have bothered him. And so soon? _Way to play it cool, Buck. Don’t you have a boyfriend?_ a voice asked him. _Yes_ , he hissed in his mind. _And this is not flirting, because we are friends and I’m having fun and we have fun like this_. But ‘we’ would imply the second party would text him back. Bucky pulled up Bejewelled on his computer. _Goddamnit_. That was a bad idea. He had picked up his phone to text Nat when it buzzed in his hand.  
  
**Steve**  
Who is this?  
Who is this racist** sorry  
  
Bucky laughed out loud and quickly looked about to see if anyone around him noticed. His coworkers were all filtering in now, settling, chatting. He quickly responded; maybe he caught Steve on a break and he didn’t want to waste the window, now, did he?  
  
**Bucky!**  
_Expect my furious Yelp review in four minutes._  
  
**Steve**  
I’m sorry I let you down :(  
Did Sam give you my number?  
  
**Bucky!**  
_It was written on my cup  
Very unprofessional, Steve _  
  
**Steve**  
Jesus  
I’m sorry  
!  
That was not my move  
for the record  
  
_Not his move?_  
“Mr. Barnes, do you have a minute? This proposal that Tony sent me is super confusing and I don’t want to ask him because he always makes it weird and my fault.” Bucky’s intern jarred him back into real space. He sighed.  
  
“Give me ten minutes, Doreen, I’ll come find you,” he said sternly. She nodded, sunny.  
  
“Sure, sure sure. Sorry!”  
  
“Don’t apologize. But if Tony makes you uncomfortable, don’t take his assignments. I have plenty of work for you, Dor.” Bucky tried to be a little gentler, but it still came out harried. She disappeared. Good kid, painfully chipper. Not her fault Tony was Tony. Bucky was about to overthink Steve’s response when Steve gave him more to overthink.  
  
**Steve**  
But you should keep this number.  
For coffee emergencies  
Obviously.  
  
_Ha!_ He did want Bucky to have it! Bucky grinned. He wanted to throw a tiny parade. Itty bitty papier mache floats, circus animals, entire marching bands paraded across the lit screen. Leading the parade was a sullen Brock Rumlow and Bucky felt suddenly very guilty. Fuck. _You’re texting him now. This is almost cheating_ , said the Lil Shoulder Angel voice. Lil Shoulder Devil scoffed. _Nobody’s dick is involved. You can have friends, James Barnes._ True, Bucky considered. No dicks. _And let’s not ask how many dick friends Brock has. Just saying,_ Lil Devil casually tossed at Bucky’s conscience, sounding evermore suspiciously like Natasha. Bucky tapped a response, and did not include emojis, though he wanted to. Emojis, he thought, were the hard line that led directly to flirtations. No emojis.  
  
**Bucky!**  
_Obviously._  
  
The rest of the morning was, as far as Bucky was concerned, inconsequential. That is to say, Steve did not text him anything further. Doreen only asked him once if everything was okay since he was “checking his phone like he was expecting bad news,” and he lied and said he unfortunately was. She brought him a piece of candy when she left for class towards the end of the day, a gesture of understanding, and Bucky would have felt supremely guilty if he didn’t need the sugar like oxygen at that point in the evening. He decided it was relevant, and not ridiculous, to text this to Steve.  
  
**Bucky!**  
_Coffee failure  
crashing hard  
smoke, flames, mayday mayday _  
  
But Nat texted him at the same time.  
  
**Natasha**  
Hey it sounded like maybe last night wasn’t great  
Were you with Brock  
I know you hate talking to me about him but I am being very honest with you when I say when you think about him you should ask whether or not you’re staying because you want to or you’re staying because you think you have to.  
because you're unhappy, James.  
ok now you go  
  
**Bucky**  
_nat not now  
I’m trying to figure this all out _  
  
**Steve**  
Oh no! Me too,  
I took an extra shift.  
Think energetic thoughts!  
Rabbits! Spring! Quentin Tarantino on So Much Coke!  
  
**Bucky!**  
_yikes_  
  
**Nat**  
Just trying to help, James  
  
**Steve**  
Glad I can help :)  
  
**Brock** **  
** got somethin u can help me w later pretty baby  
[image attached]  
  
“Son of a FUCK, UNIVERSE WHY!” Bucky slammed his hands flat against the desk. “THIS IS NOT FUNNY!”  
  
“Barnes!” Tony barked from his office and Bucky swung whole-body in that direction in a snarl. “Take a walk. That’s a Thursday yell and you goddamn know it. We’re on a schedule here.” Bucky shut his eyes and took two deep breaths: in, and three beats, and out, and five beats, and imagined an empty spring meadow, for God’s sake, and not Brock Rumlow holding his dick in his hands on a fucking ELEVATOR. Scott assessed from across the room that he should not ask, and Bucky was thankful.  
  
**Bucky**  
_really not in the mood for this at work anymore brock!_  
  
**Brock  
** who died and made u queen  
needy princess cumslut  
take it or leave it  
i got other options if you’re “not in the mood anymore”

Bucky blinked and reread that. _Options_? His heart fell to his stomach, to the floor, to the core of the earth in cinders. Hold on, _hold on_ , no, that’s not what he was saying at all. Without thinking he scrambled to call Brock, who, of course, did not pick up. He called again. Nothing. How many times did he call? It could have been fifty, but his breathing didn’t slow, and he felt like emptying the contents of his stomach all over the goddamn office. Why? What was happening to his body? It rejected existence for a whole minute. He couldn’t lose Brock. Why not? He just couldn’t, what would that be. He didn’t have it in him, he couldn’t see what was left. Brock knew every inch of him, the worst parts, in harsh light and truth. _Brock._  How did he have such control? He called again. Brock rejected the call, and Bucky caved like a house of cards, texting furiously. He typed in “that’s not what I meant,” but didn’t want Brock to read it as an accusation. He typed in “what do you mean?” but even that was too pointed. The phone shook in his hands.  
  
**Bucky**  
_baby I don’t know what that means  
I’m sorry  
9 o’clock  
Brock? _  
  
Bucky waited. Nothing. A full hour passed. He sent six emails, he signed off on two section layouts and sent them to Tony, he walked up and down the corridor three times, he got started on two projects that could wait until tomorrow. When his phone buzzed he felt it in his bones, but it wasn’t Brock. God help him.  
  
**Steve**  
TWENTY MINUTES TO GO  
Sorry to rub it in. Want me to bring you any emergency birdhouse?  
How late do you work anyway?  
  
Bucky put his head down on the desk.  
“I quit,” he grumbled and Scott, leaving for the day, heard him.  
  
“Can I have your chair?” he asked. Bucky groaned.  
  
“Lang, I fucked up.”  
  
“Like, forgot-an-anniversary fucked up, or burned-down-an-orphanage fucked up?”  
  
“Is that the scale?” Bucky marvelled. “Jesus.”  
  
“Now, _he_ did not burn down any orphanages, _that we know of,_ but he definitely ragequit some temples,” Scott grinned. “Anything I can help with, or am I good to go.”  
  
“Do you ever feel like the universe is telling you that you’re the worst and you’ve been doing something fundamentally wrong this whole time?” Scott’s eyebrows jumped; he wasn’t expecting Bucky to open up even a little. He opted for levity.  
  
“Sure. Just the other day I learned jackalopes weren’t real.”  
  
“I’m serious, dude.”  
  
“Me too, unfortunately. I don’t know what to tell you, and that’s me being honest. That’s a rough feeling. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Scott turned to go, and thought better. “Sleep tonight, please,” he added. Bucky saluted.  
  
“Fuck off, please.”  
  
“Will do.”  
  
**Bucky**  
_If I come to the shop will you still be there  
weird day  
I need sustenance _  
  
**Steve**  
Sure! I’ll save you a snack  
Sweet or salt???  
  
**Bucky**  
_idk  
destroy me _  
  
**Steve**  
ooookay?  
Going to assume you meant surprise unless your day was THAT weird  
  
Bucky fully anticipated no response from Brock; this was not the first time, or third time, he made Bucky prove himself. So Bucky would just show up at 9 and be ready to apologize. He didn’t want to go home; he was glad for Steve’s distraction for a while. He changed into slacks and shoes better suited for the bike to Birdhouse and tried not to let his mind sink into panic. Weird didn’t begin to cover this week. Barista Boyfriend was on hiatus, maybe forever, though several emails from the blog owner, Janet, were seriously distraught about this idea. Bucky hadn’t devised a solution for that yet. Natasha was ashamed of him, as far as he could tell. Brock might walk away at any given moment (though that tightrope had been fixing to snap since they began, he now could admit,) and even Steve would find out what a basketcase he was and eventually lose interest (inevitable.) If he could calm Brock down, make things right and passably stable like they had been, it would turn out alright. He could get back to the writing that made him happiest, be better balanced at work, a better friend and human. He told himself this pedaling to the Birdhouse. Steve would distract and center him, and he could handle the night. There was a madhouse of sound in his mind, contradicting ideas and fears and utter chaos, and above all that a very small voice that for some reason, he obeyed: the one that kept suggesting Steve at every possible turn. When he locked up his bike and Steve was waiting outside with two drinks and a little brown bag, the whole mess became quiet. The blonde smiled, wearily.  
  
“Weird day over?” he asked, giving Bucky a once-over glance as if checking for damage. Bucky felt suddenly self-conscious of his pant leg tucked into his sock but he didn’t move to fix it. Steve handed him a coffee. “Your pick-up, Mr. The Fourth Esquire. I’m gonna walk this over to the park and hang out for a minute before I head home, if you want to sit? I’ve been trapped inside all day.” Bucky was expecting the typical coffeehouse sit-down. A change of scenery would throw the whole dynamic; Steve wouldn’t be the barista, and he wouldn’t have to be the writer. _There’s a curious idea_ , he thought, and quickly nodded.  
  
“Sure. What’s in the bag?” Bucky couldn’t help but ask. He skipped lunch in his stupid dramatic agony. Steve started walking and he followed.  
  
“Okay, so,” he opened the bag and rifled proudly through. “I snagged two chicken salad sandwiches and some of the snickerdoodles from this morning that didn’t sell, one carrot muffin, and one pretzel bun.” Bucky wrinkled his nose.  
  
“Carrot muffin. Gross.”  
  
“Okay, ingrate, you don’t have to eat any of it.”  
  
“You pilfered quite a bit.” Bucky admired the full bag. _For you_ , he thought. _And not for Peggy. Petty, Barnes._  
  
“Yeah, they call me Hamburglar in the street,” Steve grinned, taking a bite of the offending muffin. He groaned indecently. “Mmf, this is a disaster. Cinnamon and raisins, ugh. You would definitely hate it, it’s just the worst piece of bakery trash I’ve ever eaten. Oh my god.” He stuffed a huge piece of the cap in his mouth and Bucky laughed, shaking his head. They kept pace easily, and he tried not to think it was a nice day for a walk, for a picnic, for spending time.  
  
“You’re gonna choke and I’m not gonna help,” Bucky huffed. Steve gasped.  
  
“You’d let me die on this muffin? This definitely-not-the-best muffin I’ve ever put in my---”  
  
“Alright gimme some of the fucking muffin.”  
  
“No.” Steve veered from Bucky’s attempted grab.  
  
“I wanna try it!”  
  
“You should’ve thought of that before you insulted the baker,” he replied plainly, stubbornly. Bucky loved the smile playing at his lips.  
  
“I forgot. I’m sorry! C’mon," the writer whined. Steve shook his head.  
  
“No. Reap what you sow, Farmer Putdown.”

“And here I thought this was going to be a nice, friendly picnic,” Bucky sighed, “Now I’m trying to figure where I’ll hide the body once I get a hold’a that muffin.”  
  
“Good ‘cause you’re gonna have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.” Steve plopped down on a stone bench just inside the park’s gate and Bucky immediately noticed the startling number of dogs.  
  
“Is this a dog park?” he asked dumbly. _The park is filled with dogs, Bucky._ Steve nodded satisfactorily.  
  
“It is. This is a sneak preview of heaven. Sandwich?” he offered a wrapped triangle package and Bucky gratefully accepted.  
  
“Thanks. I didn’t have lunch.” The two of them there looked like totally different characters, Bucky felt. Steve in a windbreaker and jeans and he in his crummy biking slacks and sneakers, you could almost believe they were there with one of the happy mutts prancing around, chasing tails and balls and each other. This whole scenario was like an entirely different story. _Barista Boyfriend has a secret,_ a condemning voice offered his guilty conscience, _will you write this one, too?_ Steve unwrapped his cellophane.  
  
“They really work you hard at your magazine, huh?”  
  
“Umm,” Bucky shook an encroaching dread. “I got wrapped up. It was my own fault.” He shoved the sandwich in his face to keep from saying things like: my boyfriend went off via text and I was borderline panic attack for reasons beyond my comprehension, you didn’t know I have a boyfriend, it doesn’t matter does it because we are Friends now and I Can Handle It. A chubby beagle dropped a tennis ball at Steve’s feet just then and he threw it far and fast. The beagle scampered off in a clumsy splay and Steve looked like he’d been cleansed of sin and sorrow. He sighed happily.  
  
“Glad I could help, then. Hey,” he said, suddenly enthusiastic, “do they ever let you write things like what you wrote about Peggy? That was really something.”  
  
“Not a chance in hell. Speaking of Peggy, how was your day,” Bucky changed the subject as quickly as he could. Anything to veer from his writing. Steve shrugged.  
  
“It was fine, I guess. Really busy for a Tuesday.” He handed Bucky a snickerdoodle without asking if he wanted one. Bucky cocked an eyebrow.  
  
“You know, I thought maybe you were trying to fatten me up before but now I’m certain.”  
  
“I only make coffee to pay off my witching bills,” Steve played along, looking him dead in the eye with a blue that should be reserved for glaciers, tiny birds, meadow flowers, and other fragile moments of impossible nature. Bucky held the gaze, wondering what Steve could see.  
  
“Is that why the cookies are so good?” He asked. Steve beamed and nodded.  
  
“Goat sacrifices, smudging, Pinterest, yknow---”  
  
“Hipster shit.”  
  
“Says the writer on his fixie,” Steve fired back. Bucky broke it then, laughing a little too hard.  
  
“Alright, alright,” he conceded. “Don’t hurt my feelings, punk.” Steve was laughing, too, and then it was a happy quiet as they watched the dogs frolic in the dimming light. _This is a date,_ said that Little Angel Voice, condemning. _This is nice,_ said the Little Devil. _Don’t fuck it up.  
_  
“So, uh,” Steve edged into the silence like he’d been thinking through it. “how are you at advice?” Bucky frowned, wary.  
  
“Depends on the problem. Something wrong?”  
  
“I--- okay. I got the feeling the other day like maybe you already figured this out,” Steve began, blinking a few times too many and already lying very poorly, “but, uh, let’s say I had a friend who was really interested in someone and hypothetically they’re great together but, it’s a little weird, and my friend has another friend who is really being a pill about it, and uh, they never do anything because things are kind of nice and peaceful, but I can tell the tension is literally killing them. How would, um, one handle that. Hypothetically.” Steve addressed most of this question to the gravel he kicked at with his shoes. Bucky felt like he’d swallowed some.  
  
“Killer tension, huh.” He ignored the great shattering sound in his ears that was certainly his heart and maybe some other vital emotional organs. _This is what friends do. It was only a matter of time. You have a boyfriend and it shouldn’t matter._ But it did. If Steve wanted Peggy advice, well, he would be a friend for as long as he could stand it. Maybe… forty-five more seconds, before he would miss breathing air.   
_  
_ “Distractingly so,” Steve said.  
  
“Well. I would tell your _friend_ ,” he emphasized, “that he or she is an adult and should do what makes them happiest.” Steve’s eyebrows jumped. Bucky tried to be kind, but he could feel the bitterness closing in, and something shut down, went dark. “But if it hasn’t happened already, maybe it won’t. Or it shouldn’t. At all. If it hasn't happened it probably doesn't stand a real chance, to be honest. It's too late. Relationships like that seem better in theory than they do in practice, the ones you build up in your head. Probably your friend realizes that and that's why they're afraid to start something they can't handle. It's not going to work, in my opinion. Not that it matters.” Something told him to ease up, and he ignored it. If he wanted to be cruel, he could be cruel. _Kill your darlings._  Steve’s lips formed a hard line, eyebrows in a twist of hurt.  
  
“No chance?”  
  
“I don’t know. You’re the witch, not me. Cast a spell.” Bucky bitterly crumpled his cellophane and stuffed it in his empty coffee cup. He thought about poor Peggy, but wouldn't apologize to her, even in his mind. The sun was down and most dog owners were packing up. Bucky tucked a stray strand behind his ear and set his jaw. It felt like a breakup, maybe his first of several today. Steve exhaled, shaking his head in what was either disbelief or disappointment. Bucky didn’t allow himself to feel sorry.  
  
“Well jeez, do you write the _Dear Abby_ column for that magazine?” Steve asked.  
  
“No. You need to be a good person to give decent advice. I just tear things apart.” _I’m a natural_ , he thought. “Editors have to be petty and small. I am.”  
  
“Only that last part’s true. That’s why I’ve been feeding you so many sweets,” Steve smiled, if a little sadly. If he wanted to get back to that easy, joking place they were before, Bucky didn’t want to go. If he was going to burn it down, he wanted to salt it, too. But Steve turned to face him. “I appreciate your honesty, though, Buck. You’re not… I don’t think you’re a bad person. For what that’s worth.”  
  
“You don’t know any better,” Bucky shrugged.   
  
“Guess not,” Steve said. He wouldn’t fight him, and he wouldn’t give up. Bucky wanted him to be mean, to hit back, but Steve surrendered. “I’m heading north. You need a buddy back to your bike or can you make it from here?”  
  
“I’ll be alright.”  
  
“Right. Well,” he stood up, tossing his trash in the can next to him. “Homeward bound. Thanks for the talk.” Bucky looked up at him and could tell he meant it, and that contrasting his poison was enough of a blow. _James Buchanan Barnes has broken another beautiful thing.  
_  
“Thanks for the treats,” he said. Steve chuckled.  
  
“Don’t mention it.” He had his hands deep in his pockets and he turned towards where the sun had been, the sky fading fast from a soft lavender to darker evening. “What a gorgeous night, huh? I’d kill to read how you would write this…” he trailed off, just watching the sky. Bucky watched him. “Take care of yourself, Bucky,” Steve said suddenly, turning to look him right in the eye. “No sleep, no food. Maybe you’re right and I don’t know any better since we haven’t been friends that long, but you don’t seem to consider yourself the protagonist in your own story sometimes. Why is that, I wonder, because that doesn't match your worth in the slightest. Why? Put yourself first for once, Buck, and you might see things differently. The way I---" Steve swallowed and shook his head, a little angry. "I just--- sorry. That's my advice in return, I guess. G’night.” Steve walked away, and when he was well and truly gone Bucky let the full-body shake that had been building finally take hold. He tried to talk himself out of the hole, that Steve wasn't a friend and it didn't matter and nothing he said was true, but nothing in him had the energy to lie. He was staring down the barrel of another fight with Brock, another disappointment for Nat, another week of dying slowly inside if his writing couldn't keep him afloat. Those last words, Steve’s unwitting critical strike spoken with the voice of the universe, shook straight through to the foundation. The levee finally broke, and every warning light and safety valve in his system screamed the same final order: _triage_.

* * *

  
Bucky couldn’t tell you how he got back to his bike, swimming through the words replaying in his head, but by the time he found himself in front of his apartment building, the fog had cleared, and he had to write. What he said, did at Brock’s on his way home in order to cut himself free, he’d already redacted entirely from his personal history, unwilling to consider repercussions in the wake of his vicious cleanse. The cut was not clean and cauterized, but torn, ugly, roots and all in broken soil. His body had gone into safe-mode, his breath and blood the basic functionality of a machine. He ignored a dozen texts. He deleted these numbers from his phone. He typed non-stop until it was finished, and then he passed out on the couch. At some point in the evening, he half-woke to find himself under a blanket, delicate piano and a Japanese narration softly humming on the television, Natasha folded at his feet like an origami cat. His laptop lay open in front of her, its monitor light illuminating her face. She looked up from reading, blinked at him but didn’t ask, and he fell back asleep, dreams empty, white, and cold as winter. He listened to the quiet, and it gave him permission to change.


	4. Epistolary Form

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Barnes writes, but rarely does anyone write back. Not yet, anyway.

Clint wouldn’t call himself a good cook, but he could put something in his mouth and tell you how to make a cheap approximation in your own home much the way some casual mechanics can listen to a car and know what’s wrong without ever looking at the assembly manual or under the hood. Clint took pride in unabashedly ignoring recipe guidelines and secondarily loved that it drove Nat up the wall. She could appreciate his curious nature but when he would measure a teaspoon of baking powder by pouring some into his hand and shrugging, she had to leave the kitchen. Inventing weird food for her to skeptically (but lovingly) try was just about his favorite thing in the world.  
  
When Natasha asked him to come make breakfast for her and Bucky and sit for a while, he didn’t ask questions. He rarely needed to with Nat; they had an understanding. It also gave him the unique opportunity to try out a pancake alteration he’d been dreaming about: pizza pancakes. He was fiddling with the batter in the kitchen of Natasha and Bucky’s apartment, catching pieces of their hushed conversation.  
  
_“--- and that’s it? What’d he say?”  
  
“Obviously he was furious but --- and threw a plate at me.”  
  
“Are you shitting--- Jesus Christ! That fucking animal --- okay? He didn’t --- did he?”  
  
“No. Quiet down. He --- had before a few times without --- but I didn’t know. ---”  
  
“I’m gonna WEAR THAT FUCKER AS A COAT I SWEAR TO GOD.”  
  
“Shhh, Nat, Jesus don’t be so dramatic. He’s not a bad --- ” _  
  
Clint was whisking marinara sauce into pancake batter with a bit of garlic salt and oregano. That ought to taste pizza-like enough. On top, instead of syrup, he’d drizzle olive oil and fresh basil and slice some fresh mozzarella and tomatoes, maybe some balsamic. A caprese pancake! Like a savory crepe, but much cooler.  
_  
“---to a park and everything. Like a fucking movie ---”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I don’t know exact --- Steve was just --- and I totally lost it, Nat, I didn’t --- doesn’t matter. That’s over too --- here.”  
  
“Rough day.”  
  
“You’re telling me. It doesn't --- like I woke up from a coma.”  
  
“James --- kind of did --- psychosomatic --- starting over. You know? You needed it.”  
  
“Yeah. Feels like shit, though.” _  
  
The cakes were kind of a rusty red and he felt very confident they would be delicious. Clint stacked them on a larger plate and brought them to the kitchen table.  
  
“Hey, food’s ready, teammates,” he smiled. They looked up, and they were not smiling. Clint could tell this was why he was called in: to pinch-hit at higher spirits.

“Thanks, Barton,” Bucky said. Clint waved him away.  
  
“Don’t thank me until you try it. It’s gonna be either the best or worst idea I’ve ever had. Come eat.” They joined him at the table and it was quiet for a moment while they all appreciated the first skeptical bite. Clint looked very satisfied. “Pizza pancakes!” he declared. Bucky laughed out loud for what felt like a whole minute. “Hey, now, don’t hurt my feelings, Barnes.”  
  
“No, I think they’re great. Really. Thank you for this, Clint,” Bucky smiled as the laugh subsided. It was just nice to have the tension broken, the air clear, and some truly weird food to enjoy with his friends. “I appreciate it.” Nat smiled at Clint and nodded, the greatest approval he could ask for.  
  
“Happy to hear it. Hey, I saw you on Buzzfeed the other day,” he said. “How’s that blog fame life treating you, dude?” Natasha shot him a look (though he couldn't figure why, as he'd avoided the break-up topic, as she instructed,) but Bucky didn’t seem to ruffle.  
  
“Oh, you know,” he shrugged. “Kind of at an impasse now, but it was good for a while. Observing, writing. Nothing quite like the sadistic agony of watching someone you adore fall gradually in love with someone else, right before your very eyes like a magic trick in half time. Just cute blog stuff.”  
  
“Gosh, you should be a writer,” Nat rolled her eyes. “ _Sadistic agony_. Send in what you wrote last night, there's your sadistic agony.” Bucky shoved a piece of pancake in his mouth and made a noise of disapproval. “I’m serious. There’s a solid page of Barista Boyfriend that could be your way out. Why not tell your audience what’s really happening?” Natasha put down her coffee to look him in the eye. Bucky huffed. Clint put another piece of cheese on his pancake.  
  
“Sure, yeah. That’ll really bring in the hits, Nat.”  
  
“You don’t care about that, Bucky. You can’t possibly,” she said. “And fuck’s sake, I think people would appreciate a dose of honesty.”  
  
“Best policy,” Clint added, mouth full.  
  
“It’d sink me.”  
  
“Maybe you need to be sunk, James. And then find a new goddamn coffee house," she said.  
  
“Okay,” Bucky conceded, setting down his fork angrily. “Fine. So I stop writing Barista Boyfriend. Let’s say I do.” He sighed. “And I don’t disagree that seems like the right course. But then what?” he asked genuinely. He truly didn’t know.  
  
“You’ll always be a writer. It’s your calling, man,” Clint suddenly offered. “But your best stuff is honest. There was always some truth in those little stories, even the ridiculous ones. The truth was where your heart was at, with regards to that guy. So if your heart’s somewhere else, you should let that speak for itself, huh?” Both Nat and Bucky looked at him with shock, Nat with a warm appreciation that spread to that innermost light in her eyes.  
  
“Amazing,” she said, “from the man who made us pizza pancakes.”  
  
“Which are fucking delicious, thank you.”

* * *

Clint and Nat went their separate ways and Bucky decided a personal health day was more than necessary; he sent an email to Tony and Scott (and bcc’ed Doreen because he felt bad leaving her there to deal with their shit alone,) telling them he needed to work from home. He put on water for tea, which he promptly forgot as he sat on the kitchen counter rehashing what he'd said to Brock. He played it over, four, five, six times, and lost twenty or thirty minutes staring at the kitchen tile. When he remembered the water, the electric kettle had long since gone cold and he set it to warm up again. Brock, whose heat warmed him for all that time, Brock, who couldn't love him back, Brock, who hurt him more than healed him. It was right, but it was still hard. You deserve better, Natasha had said more than once. He felt like Brock reflected him so well. How could he possibly be any better than his own reflection? He abandoned that thought, avoiding it, and shifted to the other problem of the day. He went to his room and splayed out on the bed, reading over what Nat thought he should send to Janet. The _last_ thing he would send to Janet. It was intensely frightening and a little sad, to face his army of ghost friends and tell them he had nothing left to give them. In the middle of fifteen pages of word therapy was the piece Nat suggested, the Honest Goodbye. He could delete it, he could suck it up. But Barista Boyfriend was dead, the muse set free, and only he could break that gently. He hadn't done anything gently lately, for himself, for anyone, and maybe it was time to start.   

> _The writer has a secret. He’s about to tell you the truth._
> 
> _Barista Boyfriend has a lot of secrets, too, surely. They are closely kept but light his eyes. He might let you in. You would have to knock sweetly, and sing gently. But you won’t get that chance behind your laptop, reading about him. Hiding. Lying. You can call it writing, but the truth has been deep underneath the pretty words. Barista Boyfriend is real. He has been real, and there, this whole time.  
>    
>  He can do all sorts of things. He can’t do everything. Neither can you.  
>    
>  If Steve Rogers were your boyfriend, you would start leaving your apartment early in the mornings. You would feel a cold grip around your throat when you wake, like you usually do, and you would will it to pass, like it always does. Instead of telling yourself _ it won’t kill me today because it usually doesn’t _, you will tell yourself_ it won’t kill me today because there is light in a young man’s eyes at a coffee shop _._ That light exists in the world, maybe all over. That all-important light. The one that keeps the sun going. _And you’d move on.  
>    
>  If Steve Rogers were your boyfriend, the cold wouldn’t go away entirely; he’s not a witch; but you would remember more often that you are worthwhile, and stronger than the ice. He would say so, but you wouldn’t need him to.  
>    
>  If Steve Rogers were your boyfriend, it wouldn’t be because you needed him.  
>    
>  He wouldn’t want to fix you. He wouldn’t be morbidly concerned about how broken you are, or fetishize it. It might not last forever, because it is real and fragile. It might be, probably would be, messy. You’d fight. You’d cry. You'd change. He'd change. Maybe not for, or because, of each other, but together and in the same direction. That's how the right ones work, so you hear, so they say. Naturally.  
>    
>  Steve Rogers would not be your boyfriend out of magical attraction, fated destiny, or wishing on a star.  
>    
>  Steve Rogers would be your boyfriend because he needs you, for one reason or another. Not the other way around, even though you know the other way around is true.  
>    
>  He would be your boyfriend because he is human, and flawed, and wants to be with another human, even/especially you. The luckiest human on the planet.  
>    
>  Nothing else is true: no lumberjacks or misty moors, trenches endured together, wars waged and palaces built. Just you, some lucky jerk. That’s the only one that might be true, if he were your boyfriend. And that would be the only one that mattered. That would be the bottom line, the beginning and the end, if Steve Rogers were yours, if he were more than what he is, and you would never that ask of him.  
>    
>  You aren’t anything, in this timeline, but you looked at all the others and the view was lovely indeed. There, together, you have tasted bloodless victory, and perfect romance, and sweetest dreams. You’ll wake up tomorrow and the chill will rise and fall, your world a little better off and a little worse, but it’s right as rain. Your world is beautiful, even so. Even without.  
>    
>  You’re here, and he is there, and it’s all as it should be. Doesn’t that sound nice?  
>    
>  It did. And that's enough._

Bucky’s head fell to his hands and he would never admit to what was or wasn’t clouding his eyes just then, because he had made his peace and he was light-years beyond the situation, and beyond regret. But he couldn’t publish it like this; Steve’s full name in writing like that was just out of the question for so many reasons. _You can’t publish it at all_ , his conscience nagged him. _People don’t read this column to hear how you feel!_ Buck stared at the Google doc, cursor flashing at the end. Doesn’t that sound nice? What sounds _nice_ , Bucky? What do you want, _Bucky_? Can’t you have what you want?  
  
But, why not? _Why not?_  
  
He shook the thoughts, quieted them, and hit send. What he wanted was to be done with that chapter, even if it wasn’t finished.

* * *

So from the womb his bedroom, instead of the sunny patch on his favorite smooshy sofa beneath the benevolent gaze of Barista Boyfriend and his merry band of coffee slingers, Bucky sent off his very last column to bliss-missive.com. He took Steve’s name out and didn’t edit anything else. Janet was understanding and left a return invitation open-ended, though he had no intention of continuing. She included an editor’s note of farewell at the end of his piece, and a thank you on behalf of the readers for the entertaining escapes. He stared at the words on his screen and waited for the backlash, but it didn’t come.  
  
_Oh boo, I’ll miss reading these. I hope you get him someday!_ _  
_ _NOOOO. Please say your writing a full-length novel instead. I’m gonna die without these_ _  
_ _Good Luck, James! XoXo  
_ _Nuts. back to harsh reality. I will continue this in my dreams...  
_ _I lvoe these thank you! make these a coffee table book and go on tour for real._ _  
_ _GIT HIM JAMES get that boyfriend i hope you got em all you deserve it_ _  
_ _I guess I have to read them all again. Where’s my comforting Barista Boyfriend with wine while I cry?_ _  
_ _James, thank you for all these lovely pieces, I understand these feelings you describe so very personally and it is important to me to have them articulated, and understood. Peace and love to you, friend._ _  
_ _Bro this is my favorite thing to read, not cool._ _  
_ _Is there BB fanfic yet?? I’m gonna write a hundred!_ _  
_ _Three cheers! For he’s a jolly good fellow!  
_  
Tears welled in Bucky’s eyes, and _goddamn_ , that was happening all too often now that his emotions were so raw and exposed. He felt silly, so paternal of his ghost readers. It really was the right thing to do, though. _Right as rain_ , the Little Angel said. The Little Devil said nothing, but his phone buzzed on the night table.  
  
**Natasha**  
proud of you  
  
**Bucky**  
Thanks mom  
  
**Natasha  
** Are you reading these comments  
  
**Bucky  
** Right?  
Very sweet stuff  
  
**Natasha  
** No  
Refresh Barnes  
Right now  
  
Bucky frowned but didn’t question. There was a slew of new comments.  
  
**Bucky**  
Which one?  
  
He scrolled through but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Nat sent a screenshot. Bucky read it three times.  
  
_Anonymous_  
_Please come back to TBH. We should talk._  
  
_No_. None of his readers ever addressed the coffee shop by name; no one had ever confirmed it or even gotten close. _It’s him. It has to be him_. Bucky put his phone down, feeling suddenly soft-focus, yogic-calm. Steve knew. It couldn’t be undone, or un-known. That’s okay. _That’s okay,_ he told himself. _Barista Boyfriend doesn’t matter. Steve doesn’t matter._ Bucky had checked out of the Hotel California; it couldn’t hurt him anymore, and Steve could live a normal life.  
  
**Bucky**  
Doesn’t matter  
  
Nat called and Bucky didn’t pick up.  
  
**Natasha**  
Okay fine.  
  
**Bucky  
** It is.

* * *

But it wasn’t, not quite. He thought about Steve a lot in the coming weeks, to his great frustration, with a growing bitterness and exhaustion. At least with Brock he was distracted, but now, he only had himself, James Fuckin’ Barnes, to sit in the dark and tell him what to feel, what to think, and not to picture the lovely eyes and warm smile of someone else’s man. One morning as he sat at peak frustration in an emergency meeting, an email from the bliss-missive editor, Janet, popped into his inbox. He shouldn’t have opened it right then, in front of everyone, but he needed any respite.  

> __Hi James!_ _
> 
> _Thanks again for your contributions. I hope you’ve read the comments; I promise this is not a bid for your return, but I’m about to get a little nosey because I consider you a friend and colleague despite our sad and recent estrangement. The main account got a message yesterday from a Peggy Carter who claims to know you from the coffee shop you used to frequent, the Barista Boyfriend coffee shop, The Birdhouse. She pleaded for your contact information and told me a bit about a conundrum regarding her friend, the barista. I think it would be in your best interest to talk to her to straighten things out, whatever the case may be. It feels like things aren’t finished there, James. I understand if you want to keep your personal life and pseudonym separate, and will not give her your information without your consent. But after reading the very involved story, and knowing you through your work, I want things to work out for you, selfishly. Please let me know how to proceed.  
>    
>  Janet_

Bucky stared at it a moment before flipping his phone over and closing his eyes, the colors swirling together in a visual echo of the bright screen. The rest of the table was in heated conversation about a photoshoot-turned-disaster with what was supposed to be the next issue’s cover model. She wouldn’t do an underwater shoot.  
  
“I say we can her. We have bigger fish to fry,” said Peter, the staff photographer. Tony shook his head.  
  
“We already have the interview with the director and a four page swimwear spread with the shark motif. Unless you want to arrange a whole fucking new issue, Parker, we need to get her back in the studio. And we does not include me, for clarification.”  
  
“What was her exact response?” Bucky asked. Doreen cleared her throat and flipped through her steno pad.  
  
“The character in the film is a scientist with no connection to the water and would not be depicted in a bloody bikini in a shark tank. It is, and she was very specific with her wording, ‘a ridiculous choice with utterly no justification.’” Doreen smirked like she agreed.  
  
“It’s not even a tit thing,” Peter’s assistant whined. “It’s a goddamn _character choice_!”  
  
“You telling me you can’t find a way to make a fucking science shoot look sexy? You fuckers,” Bucky scowled. “Get some little fish in tanks and test tubes and a low-cut white coat. Fuck’s sake.”  
  
“We already paid for the tank shoot, Barnes,” Tony reminded him. Bucky sighed.  
  
“You’re gonna have to pay for a new cover model, too, Stark. Get into a high school science lab. I can’t believe this is today’s big problem.”  

> __Janet-_ _
> 
> _Go ahead.  
>    
>  James_

“This is all very easy for you to say, Barnes, you don’t have to deal with this bitch,” the assistant spat.  
  
“First of all,” Bucky spun his chair and only Scott knew he was about to go off, “that ‘bitch’ is the only reason we have any lead to this summer’s fucking blockbuster event, okay, so maybe start by calling her by her name? Second of all, if you dickhands didn’t fumble this kind of problem-solving every week I wouldn’t have a job, so I’m not here to make it difficult for you. You gonna take my advice or not? Do you need me to talk to her about the new shooting details or do you think you could handle being decent humans in this fucking hellhole for once?” 

> _Dear James, or Bucky,_
> 
> _It is important to me that we speak about Steve. I infer from your last column that you have given up on him for reasons I cannot discern. That is your business. I would like to speak with you nonetheless. If you would do me this favor, please, I will meet you for coffee at Starbucks on 15th and Beech on Saturday at noon.  
>    
>  Peggy Carter _

“Make the call, Parker. You’re wasting our time. Lang, stop grinning, you look like you want to bring popcorn to these meetings. Barnes, double your dosage of chill pills. What’s up your ass recently?” Tony cocked his head, his leg tapping furiously in the tell-tale tick of impatience.  
  
“Not a good dick, clearly,” Peter’s asshole assistant quipped and Bucky didn’t bother to look up from his phone before slamming him.  
  
“You could find out for yourself, handsome, but I don’t even get out of bed for track jackets,” he sneered at the kid. Scott barked a laugh as even Tony smirked. “Read our own fucking sartorial section once in a while. Call me when this is over.” He got up and left the meeting room. In the elevator he had decided. 

> _Peggy-_
> 
> _I’ll be there  
>    
>  Bucky _

* * *

Peggy Carter was not a coffee person by any means. Occasionally getting through the workday took precedence over her die hard loyalty to tea and she made freeze-dried instant in a dingey mug at the office. Steve insisted he would supply her with all the free, decent coffee she could ever want if she would just throw away that jar of prehistoric brown crystals but Peggy was a pragmatist above all else and waved him off. But a good Earl Grey? There was no equal and no compromise there. She twisted her teabag string around her fingers waiting for the scalding water to cool Saturday morning, a solid 6 of 10 on the scale of excellent teas, but drinkable. She reminded herself that it had to be in a public place, this meeting, and Sam would deck Bucky on sight if she chose the Birdhouse. She arrived half an hour early to gather her thoughts and strategize. What sort of a man was James Barnes, really? She’d read all his columns and even Facebook stalked more than casually, but it didn’t help all that much. Talking people through their interpersonal problems was right in Peggy’s wheelhouse; she was confident if Bucky would open up, she could sort this whole Steve mess right out. That prize idiot, Steve Rogers, stopped going in for shifts, which wouldn’t be more than heartbreaking if he didn’t live with Sam, which turned the situation tense as well as tragic. He’d spent more than one night on Peggy’s couch just to avoid Sam’s caring if unproductive encouragement to get over it by throwing himself back into work, or art, or anything but playlists that include White Flag and The Scientist. “They weren’t even dating, for God’s sake,” Sam had exclaimed to her, but Peggy knew that wasn’t the whole of the problem. Steve had a lot of residual grief he never confronted, never confided, and this was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. Not that she expected Bucky to swoop back and fix it, but she needed help and wasn’t afraid to ask point blank how to go about it. The first step was finding out exactly what happened between them, which Steve didn’t seem to grasp in the least.  
  
James Barnes entered the Starbucks and looked around, frowning. His eyes fell on Peggy’s with reluctance, maybe fear. She smiled warmly and pushed the chair opposite her out with her foot as he approached.  
  
“Bucky,” she held out her hand and he shook it loosely. “Thank you so much for meeting me. I know we didn't get a chance to become better friends and I’m sure it wasn’t at the top of your list.”  
  
“No, definitely not,” he exhaled truthfully, looking around. “I haven’t found a new coffeehouse yet. This won’t be it,” he grimaced. Peggy nodded.  
  
“It’s no Birdhouse, but what is. Did you want to get a drink?”  
  
“Umm,” Bucky sized her up for a second, wondering how long he’d stay, she imagined. She tried to look as open and kind as possible. He nodded. “Yeah. Let me get a coffee?”  
  
“Of course,” she said. He slung his coat over the chair and Peggy sipped her tea. He moved with a kind of evasive dart, like he was on the defensive in spite of the general pall of exhaustion that drenched him. Like he’d gone through hellfire and woken up twice as tired. Like a break-up. Like Steve. He came back with a large black coffee, setting it down before he sat, looking at her. He seemed to make a choice.  
  
“So,” he rearranged the chair and settled in for the long haul, “I’m assuming since none of my readers know the name of the place, that was you? The comment about The Birdhouse on Barista Boyfriend?” he asked. Peggy nodded.  
  
“It was. I got no response there so I got slightly more creative, and twice as pushy, I'm sorry to say. Janet was a very sympathetic to my concerns.”  
  
“Well, here we are,” Bucky sighed, looking down into his coffee. “I’m sorry if you found any of that stuff offensive.”  
  
“James!” Peggy laughed, surprising him. “I loved those stories. You’re a talented writer.”  
  
“I’m a good liar. Same thing.” Bucky shrugged off the compliment. “How’s---” He wanted to say Steve, and didn’t. “---um, how’s life? Back at the cafe?” Peggy saw her opening.

“Not good, unfortunately. Which is why I needed to talk to you about Steve.” Bucky nodded, deeply uncomfortable at the prospect of this conversation.  
  
“Right. I don’t--- Sorry, this is very weird, having to talk to you about this. Considering." He carded a hand through his hair. "I’m sorry if it was cruel. I knew it was cruel, and that’s why I stopped writing it. Okay? You can deliver my apology. All of it was very cruel.” Peggy cocked her head. _All of what?  
_  
“Absolutely wrong, I think, but I appreciate an apology. That’s not what this is about at all. Steve thought you were getting along fine. Better than fine, even. And then you weren’t. And then you were gone.”  
  
“We couldn’t be friends,” Bucky said.  
  
“He thought that, also.  Steve worked very hard at playing your games, you know.” Bucky’s eyebrows knit together. He wasn’t following. “He’s not naturally a smooth operator in the least.”  
  
“I wasn’t playing any games. You two don’t have to worry about me interfering anymore. Things are going in the right direction, for once. Really, I didn’t mean any harm to you, Peggy.” Bucky insisted.  
  
“Hold on, this isn’t about me,” Peggy said, processing. “This is only about Steve. I came to ask your help, because this whole situation is foggy at best on our end and I want to help him get through it. I want to know what happened, and I am very grateful you're willing to lend some clarity to how things ended for you two. But that’s the extent of my participation. I’m not a key player, just a very proactive one. It's very much not about me.” Bucky took a sip of his coffee, gesturing at her with his free hand.  
  
“Well that’s probably a good explanation for why he’s having a rough go of it," he scoffed. "Kid’s got it bad for you, clear as day.” Peggy blinked.  
  
“I’m not sure I understand.”  
  
“Okay, I’m gonna be perfectly honest with you so we can quit dancing," Bucky said, looking her in the eyes and trying his best to stay there. "I only came because I felt like I owed it to you to explain myself, and the writing, and promise it's over. I just--- look, I’m a jealous guy, okay?" It was the first time he'd said that out loud, and it surprised him a little. "I didn't know that before, but I am. I can’t be the bigger man. I tried.”  
  
“Jealous of what, precisely?” Peggy thought she understood what he was getting at but wanted him to say it. Bucky was starting to get angry.  
  
“Holy hell, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. I like him a lot but he likes you a lot, okay? So that’s the long and the short of it and I don’t want to pine and perish, if you don’t mind my protecting my heart a little. I just got out of a trainwreck relationship and I’m not in a hurry to watch happy people be cute and in love, alright? You wanna know what I told him? I told him relationships you build up in your head never work, which, I’m sorry that was blunt, but it’s a hard truth, you know? I should know. That's all I told him, and that's what went down.” Peggy stared at him for a second, sudden clarity a hush in the room.  
  
“Steve and I loved each other once, years and years ago, Bucky,” she said, suddenly quiet and soft, a world away from her business tone. This was a voice reserved for lovers and children. “It ended naturally, sweetly, we remain best friends and the love is still alive, but we both found other paths. There’s nothing there now that isn’t a very fierce loyalty. Beyond that, I’m sure I can tell you once we are better friends, but it wasn’t in our cards. So I highly doubt he asked you for relationship advice with regards to me,” she half-laughed in her own disbelief. Bucky's throat tightened. That possibility had occurred to him, in the tiniest voice in the corner of his heart: _Steve wanted you._  No.   
  
“I don’t know what to tell you, then,” Bucky stammered, denial closing in. “He looks at you like the sun rises and sets by you. You two might need to iron that out.” Peggy frowned as the envy glowed a little brighter and he crossed his arms tightly across his chest, protective, and she realized the reason why she was having this conversation. It was not for Steve at all; it was for Bucky. She tried re-framing.  
  
“Bucky,” she attempted, “James. You’re a writer. Try another perspective with me, please. Humor me, because I think I've finally sorted this out." She put down her tea cup and folded her hands. "Your name is Steven Grant Rogers, an artist from Brooklyn.” Bucky rolled his eyes. “Stop that, and listen. You are good at your job but somehow always feeling a little empty at the end of the day, and you look for ways to keep your head above water. There is a gentleman who comes in the coffee shop once a week, who is very handsome and mysterious, and you can’t help but notice he stares at you a lot, a man who tips like a decent human and smiles only when he orders from you. Not for the other baristas, not while he works, not while he texts whoever is on the other end. In fact, he frowns.” Bucky let out an exasperated sigh, irritated at the growing dread he felt in his bones.   
  
“Peggy, that’s not---”  
  
“It is. So you start finding ways to make him smile more, and you’re good at that.” Bucky looked down into his coffee. He wanted to drown there. Peggy continued, her eyes direct and keeping a growing anger at bay. “And he starts visiting more. And you start talking to him! And that took so much longer, with so much more needling and pestering from your two best friends, than you would ever, ever admit. You think he is the the end-all, be-all. He’s witty, he’s smart, he occasionally says something ambiguous and you spend the rest of the week picking it apart. Your friends are positive if you asked this writer out, he would at least end the suffering of not knowing, but you’re Steven Grant Rogers, the most impossible man in the world, and you need to know one hundred percent that you will not ruin the tiny precious friendship you have built.”  
  
“Peggy---”  
  
“No, you will listen, writer, because I took the careful time to read all of your words and now you will listen to mine," she said sternly. Bucky shut his mouth and listened, tail firmly between his legs. "You beg your friends for help, and your friends are so exhausted with this entire affair that when you start texting one day and losing your mind, they are ecstatic. And then, the writer stops coming around. And because you’re Steven Grant Rogers, all heart and no bite, you blame yourself. And somehow,” she marveled, “you managed to fall in love with the one other human in this city who is just as deep in denial as you are!” Peggy breathed out in a huff, her diatribe finished. Bucky stared at her, quiet for a moment.  
  
“Jesus Christ.”

“Barista Boyfriend _does_ have a lot of secrets, Mr. Barnes, and one of them is that he believes in love. Another is that, just like another absolute _fool_ we know, he doesn’t believe he deserves it. Good thing _he_ doesn’t have a blog,” she hissed pointedly. Bucky sighed and the silence steeped.   
  
“Did you know it was me writing Barista Boyfriend? When you asked him?”  
  
“No,” she consciously evened her tone, “though that would have made things easier from the start. You gave yourself away with that writing exercise game you played with Steve, describing me. I went back and read some of the older pieces and it was suddenly embarrassingly clear. And I read that last one a few times and I realized something was very wrong, and you needed sense knocked into that pretty face.” And Bucky certainly looked like he'd been hit in the face. He shut his eyes and sighed. He didn't ask the obvious question, because he couldn't admit it. He sat in silence for a moment and changed the subject.  
  
“Has he read it?”  
  
“No, James, and I've not told him about it, because frankly he’s only just now even slightly recovering from the perma-state of kicked puppy that you left him in. I am sorry, cornering you like this, but you suffer from a great misunderstanding. And now, I believe, so does he," she concluded, slightly resigned. Bucky's defenses started to kick in, shielding the feelings that were now bombarding him that Peggy had no right to resurrect.  
  
“I know you’re coming from a place of love, but you don’t know anything about me, Peggy.”  
  
“I do love him. And that’s why I need you to come back to the Birdhouse and talk to him now that this is sorted out.”  
  
“That’s what I’m trying to fucking tell you,” he growled. Her eyes widened and he back-pedaled. “I’m sorry. I stopped going because I needed to stop going. I needed to stop writing it. Even if--- even if I was wrong about what he wanted from me. Nothing to do with Steve. Steve is perfect. Steve will find someone perfect. I get that you want to make this better, but what’s best for Steve is that he finds someone that actually deserves him, okay? If he wanted it to be me,” Bucky swallowed heavily, “that wasn’t in his cards, either.”

“Bucky,” Peggy said with finality, “I’m not going to change your mind. I can see that. But I need to help Steve. I don’t know how best to help him understand what you’re telling me.” He resented her social worker tone. She was good at her job, he could tell. And she was a good friend. But that didn't change anything.  
  
“My best friend always tells me to write away my problems. Maybe he can try that,” Bucky sighed. “I’m sorry I hurt him. I didn’t want to, I--- I had to get a clean slate or I was going to lose my mind. Things were so bad.” Bucky shut his eyes again, willing her away, himself home. “I’m starting at zero. Even if it were right, it’s not the right time. He’d never forgive me for how cruel---” he stopped himself short, looking at her and finding no reading. “This is a lot more than you needed to hear. The point is, he’s well shot of me. You’re a good friend to him, so you gotta know that’s the best option for him.”  
  
“God, you’re made for each other. It’s all so hopeless, isn’t it.” Peggy sadly smiled. “Maybe the right time will present itself. I don’t think I’ve seen the last of you. I appreciate the suggestion. I'll pass it on.” She held out her hand to shake as she stood, purse and empty tea cup in the other. She left him there and as she walked out she thought to call Sam. Maybe Bucky didn’t give her a lot to work with, but at least Sam would get a kick out of the fundamental misunderstanding that was Bucky’s jealousy. Especially given they were going to a very romantic dinner spot together that night and she intended to have as much wine as she wanted and now, she felt, supremely deserved. But first, she called Steve. She had some important advice to deliver from a brilliant if seriously delusional author.

* * *

Bucky threw his bag on the counter without even acknowledging Natasha at the kitchen table, folders worth of paperwork spread in front of her. He went for the cupboard and poured a glass of water, drinking the entire thing silently. Nat watched him curiously.  
  
“How was coffee with the social worker?” She asked. Bucky set the glass down with a clatter.  
  
“Weird. She---” he didn’t know quite where to begin. “She and Steve aren’t a thing, apparently. So it was some kind of trap where she asked for advice helping Steve and it looked like it was going to be her fault that Steve was depressed when really it’s mine, which hey, why not give me the blame, I’ll take it all,” he fumed, gesturing wildly. Nat sighed, and then perked up.  
  
"Wait, so, what was that park situation about if not about his hangup with her?" she asked. Bucky swallowed.  
  
"I don't know!" he lied. Natasha could tell.  
  
“Well," she said, "I hate to point out the obvious but that might mean you have a chance with him. Which I think you really wanted all along.” She looked back down to her reading and Bucky hiked himself up to sit on the counter.  
  
“Absolutely not. That ship has sailed. I burned the bridge. Twice, now. There's no way.”  
  
“Mixing metaphors, what a good writer you are," she smirked without looking up.  
  
“Shut up. You know what I mean. I made peace with it! I did everything you said to do, I’d like to point out. I broke it off with Brock even though that was an emotional horror movie, I stopped going to the Birdhouse and writing the column and torturing myself about the kid, and I’m trying to be kinder to myself, a little. I still have the shitty job but _somebody_ needs to keep paying for your Netflix subscription,” he tried to make light of it. Nat nodded.  
  
“James you did a lot of very brave things very quickly. You’d been trapped in that Brock timeloop for ages and it never got better. That was the right move, you know that was.”  
  
“So why aren’t you saying that telling Steve off and deleting his number was the right move?" Bucky asked quietly.  
  
“Jury’s out on that one. I agree that you need time to yourself and you need to figure out your world without these things before you try to fill that same void with the same bad medicine. You don’t have to listen to my advice all the time. I care about you but you should also do some caring. About you.” Nat tripped over her words at the end as she struggled to make her sentiment known. Bucky smiled.  
  
“Eloquent.”

“Well, I’m not the writer,” she hissed. “Clint’s coming over tonight. We’re going to play Monopoly or Scrabble and he cheats at both so it’s your call.”  
  
“Monopoly. I will play three turns and fall asleep on the couch while you make out.”  
  
“Okay, deal.”

* * *

  
Bucky woke suddenly at 10:20 from a doze as Natasha got up from the couch and headed to the bathroom. Clint was rooting around the fridge.  
  
“What’d I miss, Barton,” he rasped, his mouth fuzzy with sleep and the taste of beer. Clint was opening a new bottle at the counter.  
  
“I won and Nat’s going to take a shower. But you had all the railroads.”  
  
“Fuckin’ right I did.” Bucky picked up his little pewter dog. “Good work, Scottie.”  
  
“Your phone’s blowing up, though. I think it’s your email ping,” Clint said. Bucky could hear him tear open a bag of chips and he woke up his phone. He opened an email from Janet with the subject line “Please Don’t Be Mad,” and the body simply, “but I published another column for Barista Boyfriend that you should read. Like immediately. Again, I’m sorry this is nosey, but this is giving me life. Sorry, happy saturday, sorry, talk soon.” So naturally Bucky dashed to get his laptop. He sat back on the couch, reading unfamiliar words in that old familiar font. He held his breath.    

> _Barista Boyfriend has a secret. Readers, (who am I, Jane Eyre?) Barista Boyfriend is NOT real. There IS a guy who works at a coffee shop, though, and he has sleeve tattoos and blonde hair. He fits the description. If it were a job posting, he would have 25 years of experience and definitely apply with glowing references. He does not live in a cabin he built himself, or teach inspiring lessons at a low-income high school, or write poetry under trees, like some writers would have you believe.  
>    
>  He’s not a good writer at all. He knows someone who is. _
> 
> _So this is the story I thought I’d tell you. It’s about the Writer this time. I’m following his advice: I’m gonna write it all out, even if I’m not as good. Bare with me. Bear? Bear with me.  
>    
>  So a different boy comes into the coffee shop on Mondays. Not a different boy every Monday, sorry, the same boy, but he’s different. Barista Boyfriend would be Barista Liar if he said he didn’t start looking forward to it on Mondays. The Writer is handsome and morose (see, I can use words.) He pouts when he writes, like what he writes makes him hurt a little.  
>    
>  Barista Boyfriend won’t figure out what he’s writing for a long time. Too long. Too late. I’m sorry. I didn't think it was possible. Anyway._
> 
> _The Writer stops coming to the coffee shop. Barista Boyfriend is a Barista Bummer to all his friends and they suspect they know why.  
>    
>  I don’t know why, though. I’m sorry. It doesn’t make sense. I keep looking for you everywhere, like I’ll see your face on a book jacket or bump into you at the store. I bought your magazine and I hated it, like you said I would, but I thought maybe it was like a magic key and I’d find you in it and I didn’t at all. We weren’t even like best friends or anything but I liked talking to you. I liked spilling coffee on you. I liked giving you shit, because I think you needed it sometimes. Mostly I liked it when I could make you smile. You said it wouldn’t work, and I believe you meant it, but I would give anything to prove you wrong. Sounds stupid in writing.  
>    
>  I’m not a good writer, but I know someone who is. I don’t know him at all. And he doesn’t know me.  
>    
>  So here are Barista Boyfriend’s real secrets.  
>    
>  Barista Boyfriend was a real sick kid growing up, and he got into a lot of fights. So Barista Boyfriend is sometimes a little too quick to get mad, and has a warped sense of self-confidence. That’s what his mom used to say when she scolded him. But she was very proud of him. Especially at art school.  
>    
>  Barista Boyfriend lost his mom a little while ago. That was devastating and it wasn’t fair. I didn’t know what to do, writer, readers, I didn’t have a lot keeping me going. So Barista Boyfriend took too long off school to go back. He hasn’t drawn anything in sixteen months. He thought about it exactly twice: when a crow landed on his fire escape and watched the sad boy eat cereal through the window like Death itself, and when you came into the shop under a personal Charlie Brown raincloud, hungover on a Tuesday, and folded over a mug of tea like a weeping willow.  
>    
>  Barista Boyfriend is so dumb sometimes. Barista Boyfriend made a Monday playlist, did you know that? He played it on a Friday once, when he was absolutely smitten and crazy with waiting. God, I knew, or I thought I knew, you didn’t feel the same way, but I read all of these, I read all of them, and I thought maybe I had a chance to save something, because you wrote these like maybe you’d been hiding from me, like maybe Writer’s secret is much more interesting. That’s what I want to read next. I want to sleep at night. **Doesn’t that sound nice?** I want to forget Writer, I want to talk to other people and not wish they were you. I want to know if it was because I’m not what you wanted or because I was. I need to know, and I need to try again and fix whatever I did. I didn’t mean to let you down, I tried so hard not to. In my head, there’s a perfect world scenario where you don’t think this is desperate and weird. And maybe you think it’s sweet. Doesn't that sound nice?  
>    
>  I never thought you were anything but kind and funny and generous and brilliant. So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not gonna fight you if you say it isn’t meant to be, but I’m not giving up, either, if you give me even an inch I’m taking a mile. It wasn’t fair that I didn’t tell you everything. Mostly it wasn’t fair to me, and this is selfish. It is selfish.  
>    
>  I won't fight you! But I wanted to have the last word. Because I'm petty, and sad.  
>    
>  Do you still think you're not the main character in this story? What would it take for you to let somebody love you? _
> 
> _I just wanted you to know that you’re not the only one who daydreams, you’re just the only one who wrote it down.  
>    
>  _ _So I wrote it down for you to read if you need it. Somebody’s thinking about you, too, even if you're not._

Clint brought a beer into the living room and plopped down right in Bucky’s personal space. Mid-sip, he saw something dangerously close to tears welling in Bucky’s eyes.  
  
“You okay, Barnes?” he asked slowly. Bucky snapped his laptop shut and turned to him with sudden ferocity, grabbing at Clint’s shirt.  
  
“Barton, we need to make carrot muffins.”  
  
“Woah, alright,” Clint warily patted at Bucky’s desperate grip. “Okay. No need to spill my beer, man, we can make you some muffins.”  
  
“No, right now.” Bucky meant business. Clint quirked an eyebrow and decided not to laugh.  
  
“Okay, emergency muffins.” He took a long sip of his beer as Bucky sprang from the couch. “No questions, just muffins,” Clint mused to himself. Bucky had his coat on and was already opening the front door.  
  
“We’ll take your car,” he said, shoving on his shoes without untying them. Clint scribbled a note for Natasha on the fridge whiteboard before following him down the hall.  
  
NAT--- EMERGENCY MUFFINS, WENT TO STORE. ??????? LOVE YOU SORRY, LEFT YOU MY BEER PLEASE ADOPT HIM -cb

* * *

Natasha set the oven to preheat when she got out of the shower, clean and happy in soft pajamas.  
  
“I can't leave you two alone for ten minutes,” she muttered, nursing the abandoned beer. “ _Emergency muffins_. Fucking typical.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you're curious: pizza pancakes are excellent.


	5. The Hemingway Method

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Write drunk, edit sober, and try not to get blood on the muffins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw and apologies for drinking, swearing, and a bit of a tussle.

“This is ridiculous. Pet names,” Clint scoffed. “C’mon. Who does this shit?  _My pearl for Sundays_. God. Where’s _my_ Mr. Darcy?” Keira Knightley’s Mr. Darcy was busy peppering her with soft kisses on Bucky and Nat’s living room television.  
  
“Since when are you a Lizzy?” Bucky asked. The soundtrack swelled. “I pegged you for the bratty one.” Clint looked more than slightly offended.  
  
“Fuckin’ _never,_  dude, I’m totally a Lizzy. And _you’re_ a Mary, Barnes.”  
  
“Every girl thinks they’re a Lizzy,” Natasha rolled her eyes. “Not everyone can be a Lizzy.”  
  
“ _I_ can,” insisted the blonde, flipping the channel to the news. The forecast looked rainy and gray.  
  
“I always did fancy a whirl at the pianoforte,” Bucky slurred through a cat’s grin. He was tucked under Natasha’s arm, all three of them slumped in a heap on the couch watching _Pride and Prejudice_ and not even bothering to pretend they didn’t enjoy it unironically. After three attempts at recreating The Birdhouse’s carrot muffins, Bucky, Clint, and Nat were exhausted and drunk and sentimental, and not a one of them immune to the charms of costume dramas. They decided to lean into their night fretting over baked goods and cap it off fretting over regency marriages. It felt right.  
  
“Do you want me to call you stupidly cute things?” Nat cooed to Clint, draped across her lap. “Sweetcakes? Babyface butterlumps?”  
  
“Gooier,” he demanded, muting the television. Nat hummed.  
  
“Muffincheeks? Jellybean? Honeybearclaw?”  
  
“I call him Sugartits,” Bucky said.  
  
“He does. Just like in the movie,” Clint nodded, referring to a different movie, but who was counting.  
  
“How can I be your Darcy if he’s already callin’ you Sugartits, baby?” Nat brooded.  
  
“Mmm, baby’s good enough for me, honey,” Clint snuggled into Nat and in moments he was totally conked out. When his breathing steadied and he was clearly asleep, she addressed only Bucky in a sweet, hush tone.  
  
“What will you do now, Miss Bennet? Now that _your_ doofy Darcy has made his intentions clear?”  
  
“Oh, I’m the Lizzy now?” Bucky asked, avoiding the question.  
  
“The Denial Sister, yes,” Nat said. “You are the Lizzy without doubt.”  
  
“How flattering,” Bucky muttered. “I’m not like the other girls.”  
  
“What are you going to do,” she repeated. Bucky sighed, leaning heavily on her.  
  
“I don’t know, Nat. I fucked up so bad. I thought clean slate would start taking some kind of direction by now, but this feels kind of like backpedaling. It was a lot easier when I thought Steve was--- how do muffins even start to apologize for the mess?”  
  
“It doesn’t seem like he’s asking you to,” Nat said.  
  
“Which is ridiculous.”  
  
“It’s not, you idiot. How many times are you going to have to re-read it before you shut up whatever part of your brain is telling you it’s a scam?” She weakly punched at him with the arm draped over his shoulders. He smiled.  
  
“A hundred,” Bucky said. “Two hundred.”  
  
“Then get reading. Because those muffins will get stale and I assume you didn’t make those for us,” she said, her voice quieting as even she began the surrender to sleep. “You don’t have to marry the guy. You don’t even have to date him. Honestly, I don’t think you should get back on that train until you’ve laid the tracks a little better. But you do need to talk to him.” That was unwittingly exactly what Bucky wanted to hear.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Okay what, James.”  
  
“Okay, I accept your train metaphor, and I’ll go talk to him. Good?”  
  
“Great. You and all eighty-six of those muffins. Now shh, I’m gonna dream about that sweet regency ass in those riding breeches.”  
  
“By all means, Miss Bennet. Sweet dreams.” Bucky stayed awake as Nat shifted Clint into a more comfortable position and gradually fell asleep herself. He was watching the news on mute now, turning things over in his mind. The newscaster seemed to be looking right at him, imploring. _What’s next for you, James Barnes?_ The forecast was rain, but only for tomorrow, and only maybe, then. Past that, he thought, he was free to design. The newscaster shifted some blank pages in front of her, expression grave.  
_He might be thinking of you right now, James Barnes,_ she said.  
You think so? He asked silently.  
_You know so,_ she smiled. Bucky smiled too. Figuring out just what to say would be a problem for Future Bucky, he decided, but at least he knew how he felt, and how he felt was surprisingly hopeful, for the first time in months, and also only slightly uncomfortable under the weight of Nat’s arm. Sleep tugged at his sleeve and he gently followed.

* * *

He wasn’t a lightweight by any means but Sam Wilson could not keep up with Peggy for style or capacity when it came to dinner wine, even on a full stomach of pasta, and she revelled in it. Arm linked haphazardly through his they walked in the brisk night. Her steps were sure and her smile smug; it was all she could do to keep Sam from weaving as she walked him home from dinner.  
  
“I’m supposed to be escorting _you_ to _your_ apartment,” he pouted. Peggy patted his arm.

“But then who would escort you, Wobbles?”  
  
“Don’t call me that, that’s not cute.”  
  
“Perhaps stop wobbling and I’ll have to think of a different one,” she said. She felt triumphant after a full day of Personal Drama Management: she dealt a hard truth to her new friend James at the coffee shop, she talked Steve off a metaphorical ledge and planted the seeds of healing, she accidentally drank Sam under the table and had a very candid conversation about their open relationship (which is to say, neither of them really had time to make it as pretty as they would like and Peggy got the amiable go-ahead to see if that girl at work was interested in making out once or twice,) and she didn’t have to split her cannoli because Sam wanted ice cream on the way home and was a very stubborn drunk. They bought three pints of Ben & Jerry’s at the bodega and assumed Steve would still be up waffling about Bucky when they got home. And they were partially correct. Steve was definitely still awake; as Sam fumbled with his keys, they could hear Disney soundtracks blasting in the apartment. Peggy and Sam both stopped short of opening the door, just so they could listen. Steve was singing along. Enthusiastically.  
  
“Is that nerd pretending to be Belle right now?” Sam whispered (or, he tried to whisper.) Peggy nodded, glee crinkling her eyes.  
  
“Give him a minute,” she said. Neither of them could really contain themselves as they heard him doing the character voices: a gruff grumble for the Beast, his sweet tenor for Belle, and ridiculous accents for the long-suffering household staff and townspeople. Peggy and Sam were in genuine tears keeping their laughter at bay, listening at the door, ice cream slowly melting.  Sam finally burst through to join him on Gaston’s big number and Steve didn’t even have time to be embarrassed as he danced through the kitchen. Sam stood up on a chair.  
  
“ _I use antlers in all of my de-co-rating!_ ” He slurred only slightly off-pitch and Steve looked elated.  
  
“Just in time! Though, in my dreamcast, you two are my Mrs. Potts and Chip,” he said. Sam deflated.  
  
“What! I’m an intimidating specimen!” Sam demanded. Steve continued putting dishes away; he’d cleaned the entire apartment while they were gone.  
  
“No, you’re a broken teacup, my darling,” Peggy smiled and helped him down off the furniture. “And Steve might be Cinderella. You’ve been busy,” she marveled. The blonde made a sweeping curtsy.  
  
“I did something stupid and I am avoiding thinking about it or refreshing the internet every three minutes!” He exclaimed, a manic joy masking what Peggy now realized was anxiety.  
  
“Great! We brought ice cream!” Sam matched his enthusiasm. “And I’m drunk!” Peggy turned down the music only slightly as it switched to Hercules. Sam was rambling about the dinner wine and Steve was laughing so hard that tears were lining his eyes. She couldn’t help but smile.  
  
“My first class fools,” she sighed. “Both of you are too punchy to function. Sam, shut your mouth and let Steve tell us what stupid thing he did!” She insisted, getting three spoons from the silverware drawer that Steve had obviously rearranged in the last couple of hours. Steve caught his breath.  
  
“Well!” He shrugged humorously, grinning. “I wrote in to that woman! I wrote a Barista Boyfriend and she published it.” Steve started laughing, a kind of growing hysterics. Peggy clamped a hand to her mouth, eyes wide in amusement or horror, she wasn’t sure. “And it’s on the internet now and everyone can see it! And I didn’t even wait for you to come home to spell check it because I’m a disaster!” Sam was now laughing with him. Peggy wasn’t, not yet, but she couldn’t help the contagious smile.  
  
“You didn’t. You did?” He nodded.  
  
“I did! I super did. I did and cannot undo. It’s all out in the open now,” Steve’s smile softened a bit as Peggy handed him a spoon and shook her head.  
  
“Oh, Steven. Chin up, my darling. Get me your computer.” They stood around the kitchen island with three pints open, shifting between them, passing the laptop as they read the comments where Steve had poured his heart into several sloppy paragraphs.  
  
“This is the best thing that’s ever happened in my whole life,” Sam howled around a spoonful of cookie dough ice cream. “I feel so alive! Look at this one, uhh, GeorgiePeach007 says, ‘this is the romance of the century!’ Georgie, _yes_ ,” Sam agreed. “This is some Daytime TV, man! You’re incredible.” Steve nursed the pint of cherry.  
  
“I know. I know, it’s terrible.”  
  
“Steve, it’s beautiful,” Peggy corrected. “I’m sure this wasn’t easy to write.”  
  
“There’s a good chance it won’t even do any good,” Steve pointed out, spoon lodged in his mouth. His friend dismissed that immediately.  
  
“I’d say there’s a slim chance of that. There’s no way he hasn’t already read this. If not more than once.” Peggy swapped pints with Sam. He agreed.  
  
“And is already writing you back!”  
  
“Or leaving the city,” Steve sighed. “Which would be fine! I got the last word, I did the best I could.”  
  
“Ooh, ohh here’s your writer’s theme song,” Sam smirked as _I Won’t Say I’m in Love_ played on the stereo. Steve cuffed him in the shoulder.  
  
“Is not.”  
  
“Totally is,” Sam said. “Peggy’s the entire Greek chorus.”  
  
“Janet Van Dyne, as well,” Peggy pointed out. “We dine on fine ice cream in her honor, sweet thing. May she live a long a fruitful life for all the help she provided.”  
  
“Good thing she loves this drama as much as I do,” Sam grinned, scrolling on the laptop. “Steve, stand still and calm down, man. You’re shaking the table.” Steve was fidgeting helplessly.  
  
“Sorry. I know. I think it’s adrenaline. I can’t stop worrying about it now. How does anyone publish anything? I don’t know how he did this for so long.” He worried aloud. Peggy rolled her eyes, unwilling to acknowledge it. Sam continued reading on bliss-missive.  
  
“Man, impossible. Also, I think this one he wrote about the baseball team and the little kids is my favorite. This is some domestic fluff bliss right there.” Steve smiled at the table. Peggy shook her head in playful disagreement.  
  
“Ah, now, my favorite,” she said, “is the one where he heavily implies he would like to devour Steve’s face.”  
  
“That’s all of them, Peg,” Sam replied on cue.  
  
“Is it? My mistake.”  
  
“Alright, that’s enough,” Steve interrupted their tease. “He wasn’t subtle. I admit these are not subtle. But it’s not like I had the benefit of reading these all this time!”  
  
“I would just like it on record that Sam and I knew Bucky’s very secret intentions _without_ the benefit of reading these, thank you very much,” Peggy said, “and it just took you an agonizing several months to make a move. Not---” Peggy cut off what was likely to be a protestation from Steve, “---that you didn’t have your reasons. We understand. We’re just happy to be moving again, in any direction. Aren’t we, Sam.”  
  
“Like some kinda molasses swamp love-sloth,” Sam mused. “And now we wait for a response, huh?” Steve shut the laptop.  
  
“Nope. Now we move on, and if something happens, something happens. But he was right. If we’re existing separately, that’s okay. We’re doing our best,” Steve trailed off, thinking on it. “Both kind of messed up, but doing our best.”  
  
“Well, that’s a turnaround,” Peggy said, astonished. “A very calm approach. All this after some writing therapy? I’ll have to recommend this practice to more families.” And truthfully she had plenty of reason to hope. The apartment was spotless, Steve looked ten years younger without his Sulking Beard, and nobody was listening to Dido. Sam couldn’t help but ask the obvious question, a begging grin on his face.  
  
“So, my buddy. My pal. My dude, sweet, sweet Steven. Does that mean you’ll come back to the shop to help your best friend Sam? Go back to school? Straight A’s?! Finally bring home that Caldecott Medal so we can put it on the motherfucking FRIDGE?!” he escalated, louder with each question. Steve put up his hands in defense.  
  
“Woah, hey. One thing at a time,” he said. “I just poured my heart out on the internet, I think that’s enough for one night.”  
  
“Yes! He didn’t say no! You’re my witness, Peggy-sus,” Sam exclaimed, grooving unabashedly. “My sleepy ass doesn’t have to work twice as hard tomorrow morning! Yes!”  
  
“You mean your hungover ass,” Peggy smiled sleepily, the sugar and the evening’s revel subsiding with the hour.  
  
“Yeah? _So what, I’m drunk. It’s the freakin’ weekend, baby, I’mmabouto have me some fun. Bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce_.”  
  
“You can’t sing that while The Little Mermaid is happening, is nothing sacred?” Steve lamented, laughing.  
  
“ _Ariel rolling that body got every man up there FISHIN_ ,” Sam insisted, dancing lewdly. Peggy took a moment to seal the image in memory: Sam and Steve laughing again, the evening already worn and sweet, the end of a perfect day. She remembered Bucky’s words, how he described their trio as “easy.” She made a silent wish that somehow, and soon, their ranks might grow.

* * *

“How about this one? Is this one trying too hard or is it trying just hard enough?”  
  
“James, you’re a parody right now.” Natasha said from Bucky’s doorway, watching him hold up different shirt and jacket combinations. “This is where I tell you to wear the sexy black lace number and you blush and swat me away.”  
  
“I’m saving the sexy black number,” Bucky glowered. “Christ, I don’t know how I’m gonna go in there. I can’t remember the last time I walked into a room with this much backstory. Maybe I should write myself something to say,” he huffed, tossing another shirt on the bed. “I don’t know what I’m worried about, Peggy said he hadn’t come into the shop for a while. I’m just gonna drop these off with a note of apology, and get out.”  
  
“You must’ve really broken him if he stopped going to work all this time, huh,” Nat wondered aloud. Bucky stopped mid-stride and thought about that. He suddenly swooped up all the discarded options.  
  
“This is nuts. I’m not going today,” he declared. “It needs more time. You said I should lay the tracks. This is ridiculous!” He threw a shoe across the room and it smashed something on his dresser. Nat, used to this kind of outlash, didn’t flinch.  
  
“Hope that wasn’t your shitty cologne. I didn’t mean to wait on apologizing, you doofus. Apologies have an expiration date. And who really has fucking time, James? We’re all gonna die someday and you spent months wooing this guy without even knowing it. It’s been weeks, you said you were going, we made a hundred fucking muffins and you are going to the goddamn coffee shop! You’re just getting scared,” she glared at him in silence for a moment and the words sunk like stones.  
  
“She’s using her Dad Voice, Barnes, you’d better listen,” Clint advised from the kitchen table, where he’d been bored for the past half an hour. He played Cat Collector halfheartedly on his phone. “Wear that red henley, you look nice and snuggly in that.”  
  
“Thanks for being helpful, _Clint_ ,” Bucky yelled, a twist of sass aimed right at Nat with a glare. Natasha sighed and left the room. His phone was on the table and she picked it up, not bothering to ask if she could rifle through it; his passcode hadn’t been a secret to her for months. She took several pictures of herself and set a bunch of alarms before Bucky snatched it from her hands.  
  
“Do I have to childproof this?” He said, pocketing it. Clint handed him a grocery bag full of muffins.  
  
“They’re presents for you. When you need courage,” Nat smirked. Bucky shook his head, fiddling with his sleeves. He pushed them up, thought about it, and tugged them down.  
  
“Oh, sure,” he grumbled. “Future Bucky is going to get a lot of courage from that 4 am alarm with the poop emojis.”  
  
“Everybody needs reminders,” Clint deadpanned. Nat shot him a winning smile and he winked at her.  
  
“Okay. I’m going. You two can go back to bed,” Bucky breathed out a sudden huff, his shoulders square. Nat shook her head.  
  
“No, step out the door.”  
  
“I’m gonna go!” Bucky whined, fiddling his watch though it needed no adjustment. “Just give me a second.”  
  
“Step out the door, James.”  
  
“Look, I’m out the door. I’m out.”  
  
“Okay. Good luck. Be nice.”  
  
“I’m a nice guy,” Bucky turned back to the open door, offended. Nat dead-stared at him. “I’ll be nice! How could it possibly go wrong? I made fucking muffins. It’ll be great. Lots of fun. Gonna apologize so hard to this asshole. Fucking incredible. Gonna go great,” he growled, wheeling around and stalking down the hall. Nat shut the door.  
  
“That’s not gonna go great,” Clint said honestly without looking up from his pixel cats. Nat turned the coffee maker on.  
  
“Have a little faith,” she chided. “He’ll do his best.”  
  
"Exactly what I mean."

* * *

An hour later, after folding two loads of laundry and hearing nothing from Bucky, Nat texted him. She wasn’t only thinking of the bet she’d made with Clint, but to say that thirty bucks and genuine concern didn’t exactly weigh _equally_ on her interest in the unfolding affairs of her roommate would be an understatement. Thirty bucks could buy a lot of sushi. She'd bet he would spend the night. Clint bet on disaster, though he obviously hoped he was wrong.

 **Natasha**  
_How’d it go?_  
  
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he very carefully shifted to retrieve it. He had gotten all the way to the dog park before having a minor panic attack at the thought of another relationship to ruin, one which he hadn’t even started, but one which he was already too suffocatingly invested in thanks to his stupid fucking blog posts. So for the past forty minutes, he’d been very slowly picking shards of bark off a sturdy old tree and telling himself he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to, and he didn’t owe it to anyone to be responsible for anyone else’s heart, especially when he inevitably, accidentally broke it. Nope. Not this time. Not Steve. He needed time.  
  
**Bucky**  
I’ll let you know when I get there  
Maybe next week

 **Natasha**  
_What happened  
Where are you? _  
  
**Bucky**  
I’m sitting in a tree  
  
**Natasha**  
_Wut  
??????  
What the fuck are you doing up a tree barnes  
You had a plan!!!!! _  
  
**Bucky**  
FUCK THE PLAN  
I AM IN A TREE NOW  
Nobody will find me here

“Bucky?”  
  
“Oh my god.” Bucky buried his face in his knees, fully curled in the bough of the strong hickory. Steve squinted up at him from its roaming roots. "This can't be happening."  
  
“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”  
  
“Don’t play it fucking cool, man, I was working up the courage to come to the coffee shop, god damn it!” Bucky exclaimed honestly, cursing the sky and the leaves and every bit of the morning. The clouds rumbled in response and drops of warning rain tapped the canopy above him. “This is un-shitting-believable! How could you possibly have come to this exact spot? Get out of here!”  
  
“I always come here to de-stress and get ready for the morning shift,” Steve shrugged, looking around. The early hour and the threat of a storm, now obvious, left the place empty but for the two of them. “You’re in _my_ park!”  
  
“You can’t own a park,” Bucky grumbled, scrambling down branch by branch. “This is public land. This is for the people.” He landed on the ground right next to Steve with a thud, nearly losing his balance. He let the bag of muffins plop unharmed at the tree’s roots.  
  
“Says who?” Steve challenged. “You wanna fight me, Teddy Roosevelt?”  
  
“Maybe I do!” Bucky put two hands on Steve’s shoulders and, in spite of every common sense warning bell, alarm, and whistle ringing in his ears, he pushed. Steve staggered back half a step, alarmed but somehow smiling crookedly in his disbelief.  
  
“You serious right now?” He asked. Bucky bristled and flexed his hands. Steve pushed back. “This is how we’re gonna deal with all that?” Bucky’s back hit the tree trunk and as if the rage of the entire month resurfaced, all the welts from Brock and all the bruising blood, the tears, everything that filled that grave he’d dug for himself spilled over, he clocked Steve Rogers square in the face and didn’t immediately regret it. That is, until Steve recovered enough to wheel around and connect his knuckles with Bucky’s left eye. A clap of thunder comically underscored their heavy breathing and gasping curses, Steve smearing a trickle of blood from his nose across his hand, an identical red blot left on Bucky’s cheek where he’d stamped him. The writer had one hand firmly pressed to his face, blinking away stars and swirls of color that shouldn’t be there.  
  
“FUCK, that stings,” he growled. “What are you, twelve?”  
  
“Oh my god. You swung first, you asshole!” Steve exclaimed, blood now sinking into his sleeve. "I said I wouldn't fight you but I didn't think this was what you had in mind." Bucky’s ears rang and _holy shit_ , he hadn’t prepared for this eventuality in the slightest.  
  
“You’re right, fine, I’m garbage. I have to lie here and die now,” Bucky said, letting his knees fold under him. “Bye.”  
  
“First of all, stop saying that shit. Second of all, Jesus Christ, Buck! What the hell!” Steve sank to the ground where Bucky had surrendered, sitting right next to him in what little shelter the leaves provided from the steadying rain. Bucky took a napkin from the increasingly damp muffin bag and wiped the blood from dripping off Steve’s chin. “This is super fucked up,” the blond obviously pointed out. Bucky held him still with his other hand, still buzzing at the joints from the throw.  
  
“I’m sorry. Jesus, my defenses are so strung out after--- this is not how I pictured this meeting going at all, for the record, I would never want---” he sighed, frustrated with himself. Steve let Bucky clean him up, adrenaline coursing like a twitch.  
  
“I know,” the barista was laughing now, the tension shattered, massaging his knuckles. “I know. God, _I’m_ sorry. I can’t remember the last time I--- my heart’s pounding out of my chest, I don’t know how else to handle what’s happening right now.” His eyes were watering from the hit, cheeks flushed and full with his crooked smile. Drops of rain were sifting through the leaves and landing kindly on his shoulders and hair, christening his eyelashes. Bucky had to remember to breathe, and only realized the tremor in his hands just then. He slowly lowered the napkin, blotted red, to get a better read of Steve’s face. His left hand stayed, ghosting over Steve’s jaw where he held him still.  
  
“What _is_ happening right now?” Bucky asked, voice low. His eyes asked another question, and Steve answered, surprising them both and leaning in to press a quick, playful kiss on his lips. For the briefest moment, Bucky couldn’t feel even a brush of pain, couldn’t feel the rain or cold, and he leaned into it. He felt warm, grounded, and--- okay, no, his face still really hurt. Steve winced, pulling away with a chuckle.  
  
“Cancelled it out now. Truce,” he said, gingerly padding at his nose. “Ouch.”  
  
“Makes two of us.” Bucky shut his left eye, massaging the cheekbone where Steve had connected. “Gonna have a shiner to explain at work.”  
  
“Want me to make it better?” Steve offered playfully, tilting his head back to stem the blood from his nose. Bucky laughed out loud.  
  
“Yeah, give me a second one so I can say I’m just really into pandas suddenly.” He rifled through the now-wet bag at the foot of the tree. “You want a fucking carrot muffin?” Steve blinked.  
  
“You made carrot muffins?” His voice, sweet like the gesture hadn’t gotten lost in the fray, melted Bucky into steam.  
  
“Yeah. A peace offering.”  
  
“Ha!”  
  
“Not for--- yeah. Well. Now it’s an apology for apologizing,” Bucky sighed, stretching his legs out in front of him. What rain the tree couldn’t shield made dark specks on his jeans. His face throbbed, but his hands tingled from where they’d made contact with Steve. The blond held the little baked token in his free hand, the other pinching the bridge of his nose.  
  
“Gosh, I’d hate to see us get really angry,” he smirked. “I used to pull that sort of thing as a kid. Are you mad about the thing I wrote? Because Peggy---”  
  
“No,” Bucky cut him off immediately. “Absolutely not. I meant to apologize, but---” The reality of the situation spoke for him, and he didn’t bother to fill in the gap. “That Peggy’s something else,” he offered at last, weakly. Steve had to agree.  
  
“She’s a problem-solver.”  
  
“Well, she tried, anyway.”  
  
“We’re talking, aren’t we?” Steve said around a mouthful of muffin. Bucky laughed, wincing as a shock wave went through his bruising socket.  
  
“Barely.” The rain fell so nice and steady around them, the higher green grass jumping with droplets further out. Bucky felt words in his mouth that he should swallow, but Steve’s shoulder against his, against the bark of the tree, overrode all signals from his defensive mind. “I’m not mad at you. I’ve got a lot of other things to be mad about.”  
  
“Me too,” Steve said. “We have a bad history with this park, huh. Guess we should join a fight club. What are you mad about?”  
  
“You already broke the first fucking rule, Steve.”  
  
“What are you mad about, Buck.” Steve pressed and Bucky felt himself give.  
  
“Me, I guess. I wasn’t taking very good care of myself. It, uh,” he sighed heavily and found the words tumbling out without hesitation. “God. Steve. All of it just imploded. It wasn’t my fault. I don’t think. Most of it. But a lot of it was. I was seeing a guy for a long time that was just--- I spent a lot of time not thinking about it. That website was kind of the only way I was expressing anything. And mostly all I did was express that I was bitter about not having that sort of thing and mad at myself, so obviously that was the shittiest therapy. Now both of those are out of the picture. And I have to figure out what happens to me now that there’s nothing holding me up but me.” Steve processed it slowly.

“That explains a little bit of that last thing you wrote. Pretty articulate for having just broken up,” he marveled. “You _just_ broke up?”  
  
“The last time we were here, yeah.” Bucky nodded, remembering. “However many weeks that was.”  
  
“Three weeks. I wish I’d known,” Steve said honestly. “How’s that situation now?”  
  
“I don’t know yet. In the end it was just so dark. It never seemed dumb while I was in it. It felt--- I don’t know. It’s still blurry to me. But it was dumb. I don’t want to do that again. For anybody, or me. It was so dumb.”  
  
“We do dumb things, we’re human,” Steve tried to shrug. Bucky pulled at the grass, not looking right at him.  
  
“What’s the dumbest thing you ever did for someone you loved?”  
  
“Umm,” Steve thought about it for a moment. “I learned Wonderwall on the guitar.” Bucky laughed.  
  
“I would kill actual people to hear that,” he said. “Is that really it? Nothing worse?”  
  
“No. No, I guess the dumbest thing I did for someone I loved, was I, uh. I snuck a dog into my mom’s hospital ward when she was really low. I borrowed this fat little dachshund Jif from our neighbor and I pretended he was a therapy dog going to the kids wing. The nurses liked me well enough by then, I was there a couple times a day between classes. They didn’t notice me veer in the other direction or they didn’t say anything if they did. But one of her docs was visiting and he was just furious. Health and sanitation and all that, since her immune system was so weak,” he sighed. A better friend would hug him, Bucky thought. He wanted to hug him, or shatter a thick pane of glass or rip open his own chest, if it would keep Steve from looking like that. It was the truest injustice of this world, that any heartbreak should come within striking distance of Steve Rogers. _And you broke that punk’s nose.  
_  
“That seems over-cautious,” he tried to comfort him, even so. “Did it make her smile, though?”  
  
“Happiest she’d ever been in there,” Steve nodded.  
  
“Then it was worth it.”  
  
“Oh yeah,” Steve agreed. “By a mile. It was dumb, but I don’t regret it. I never told anybody that story, I guess. But it was worth it for even those ten minutes.”  
  
“Then it’s not that dumb. You probably think about it a lot, that’s all.” Bucky wondered if that was how regret works: it grows with overthinking.  
  
“Yeah, I think about those last days a lot,” Steve admitted. “Way more than is healthy, I’m told. The point is, I don’t think what you did was dumb. You got out. That wasn’t dumb.”  
  
“It took me a long time,” Bucky replied, his face dour. Steve looked at him pointedly.  
  
“Taking time is okay.” He crumpled his muffin wrapper and put it in Bucky’s hands. “Good things take time. Like baking muffins.”  
  
“You’re telling me. Grating carrots is the worst thing thing in the world," Bucky remembered. Nat was naturally very good at it, but all three of them had agreed that bakers must have arms of bionic metal to grate that much vegetable into cake batter more than once. Steve laughed quietly and there was a sweet lull, just for a moment, and while he collected a thought.  
  
“So can I be honest with you, Buck?”  
  
“I think beating each other up on a Sunday morning earns us some emotional transparency, sure.”  
  
“I was raised Catholic, so the value of this exercise is not lost on me, by the way,” Steve added. “I’d endure worse for you.”  
  
“You shouldn’t have to endure it _from_ me,” Bucky scowled, looking away. “Is that what you wanted to say? Because if it’s my turn, I have to say we’re a good team like paper and fire, pal. Hate to break it to you.”  
  
“You made me muffins to tell me we’re like paper and fire?” Steve quirked an eyebrow and Bucky spilled his heart into the wet grass.  
  
“I made you muffins because you made me cry in my own home and I felt personally attacked by what you wrote, okay? I always wanted that to be true, and you just can’t waltz in there like it can be, it’s not that easy and these things take time! You have to---” he struggled to remember Nat’s metaphor, “---lay tracks for a train! To travel on them! Gotta have a--- route plan! You know what I mean. I was mad I hurt you. And this is going swimmingly, as I have now literally hurt your face.”

“Small price to pay to hear you tell me your feelings instead of having to read them on the internet,” Steve mused. “That’s not what I was going to say, though, so let me say it, okay? I really like you.”  
  
“Yeah, I know.”  
  
“Okay, Han.”  
  
“No, I--- c’mon. I’m trying, here, Steve,” Bucky whined. He felt like he was stretching past the emotional limitations of his language, which, as a writer, was frankly alarming.  
  
“I know what you mean, why you’re saying this, Buck.” Steve insisted, shaking a wet strand of hair from his vision and turning to look Bucky right in the face. “It’s alright. We’ll figure it out eventually. If you wanna lay a, uh, route plan for the train,” he smirked, looking out on the park with a sweeping gesture like a pioneer over the land, “then let’s do that. I think we should do that, is what I’m saying.” Bucky knotted his hands.  
  
“If you give me a chance, I’m gonna let you down. Probably not right away.”  
  
“What a privilege, though, huh? To be let down by you.” Steve heard himself say it and thought it might be the most Nicholas Sparks thing anybody'd ever said, but Bucky didn’t say anything then. He was somewhere else. “I hear what you’re saying. Bucky? I hear you. You’re worth every chance I could possibly take, okay? I really believe that, sappy or not. Life is short, isn’t it? I’m gonna stick by you. Even though right now it is fucking cold, my clothes are soaked, and my face is bleeding.”  
  
“God, I’m sorry.” Bucky buried his face in his hands.  
  
“You did start that one, I’d like to state for the final record, though you have my forgiveness as a non-practicing but very well-meaning Catholic who got detention for roughhousing no less than a hundred times. Glad to see old habits die hard. Wish it hadn’t been your ugly mug, though.” Steve nudged him with his shoulder and Bucky looked up at him, the blonde’s eyes soft and smiling.  
  
“Can only improve it,” Bucky shrugged. “Can’t say the same for yours, I’m afraid. Looks like you’re stuck with it.”  
  
“Ouch. That hurt worse than my nose.” Steve said, slowly getting up. “Come on. I’ll make you a cup of coffee and we can start over.”  
  
“Steve---”  
  
“No strings. Just coffee.” Steve promised. “Scout’s honor. We clearly have a lot to talk about. But--- okay, I’ll make you a deal. Just consider it. You owe me, for ruining my modeling career.” Bucky would have promised him anything, he feared. He stood, grocery bag of muffins hanging like a dripping consolation prize.  
  
“What’s that.”  
  
“Let me kiss you one more time.” Bucky opened his mouth to protest and Steve put his hands over his lips. “Not now. When the timing’s right. Whenever. Seven days, seventy years, whatever it is. It’s only fair. Just one to try again sometime. I want a do-over.” Bucky searched Steve’s face and found nothing there but sincerity. He couldn’t fathom how Steve would want anything to do with him, not after he proved himself the runaway train. But here he was. Still there. Stubborn Steve Rogers, who made perfect lattes, smiled like the first day of summer, wrote like a second-grader, and gave him a black eye. Steve Rogers, who liked him enough to stay. Bucky’d never let him go, if he got the chance to hold him. He wasn’t sure he could. But there Steve was, offering him time and space like it might be his to command. Bucky stared at him, endlessly grateful, suddenly hopeful.  
  
“I gotta set an alarm for seventy years from now?”  
  
“If that’s what it takes," Steve nodded. "Hope you have a good data plan.”  
  
“Alright. Seventy years.” Bucky took out his phone to find a silent alarm was already buzzing, one of Nat’s. _Let yourself be happy, you asshole_ , it read, with several poop emojis and one heart-eyed cat. And Bucky involuntarily smiled.  
  
“Hey I got a joke for you, Rogers.” He followed Steve towards the park's gates, past their bench, and out on to the sidewalk where, as the rain let up, birds rejoiced in the curbside puddles where unfortunate worms found themselves out of luck. Steve bumped his shoulder as they walked.  
  
“What’s that.”  
  
“Does your face hurt?” Bucky asked. Steve chuckled.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What a coincidence, mine too.”  
  
“I don’t think that’s how that joke goes," Steve said. Bucky hummed.   
  
“Maybe you gave me a concussion. Where am I? What year is it?”  
  
“Oh, you don’t know? It’s 2076. Is that--- do I hear your alarm going off?”  
  
“That’s funny, I have this strange feeling like I’m late for something.”  
  
“That _is_ funny. I, for one, think you’re just in time.”

* * *

Sam would insist he saw them holding hands as they walked into the Birdhouse, but couldn't be sure; he instinctively went for the first-aid kit under the counter and tried not to be surprised. He did, however, send a hundred mental high fives to God, Jesus, Buddha, and the benevolent spirit of Kool & The Gang who were playing a fully-orchestrated Celebration with back-up dancers and circus bears in his mind. 

* * *

Bucky breezed into the apartment right past Nat and Clint doing dishes after their dinner without a word. Nat wiped soapy hands on her jeans in full faux-Mom mode. 

“Hold on, Buster, get back here. Where have you been? What happened to your face?”

“It went great, Nat," he shrugged. "Just like you said. Just like Lizzy and Darcy.”  
  
“I don’t think Elizabeth Bennet got a black eye when Darcy proposed.”  
  
“Oh, I’m conflating it with _Gangs of New York_.” Bucky grinned and disappeared into his bedroom, his phone chiming with texts.  
  
“Nice. I’d watch the shit out of that movie.”  
  
“Can you not encourage him, Clint," Natasha sighed. Clint shrugged.  
  
“Just saying. And I would like my thirty dollars in small, unmarked bills, please. He has blood on his shirt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what happened, but here we are.


	6. An Interlude: A Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The very beginning is a very good place to start.

_**A Note from the Editor** _  
  
_Hey there, friends and neighbors! Janet here!_  
  
_Spring has long since sprung at bliss-missive and we are not sorry for this obnoxious new garden layout! I need a Benadryl just looking at all these flowers. This month our sponsors are matching all donations to the Save the Bees fund located on our What’s the Buzz news page, honey! How’s that for a sweet deal?_  
  
_The winners from last week’s Rain or Shine contest have been posted, and, no spoilers, but I laughed so hard I cried no less than three separate times reading these goofy date mishap tales, so I know you’ll just love ‘em! _  
  
_Inquiring minds want to know just how things played out for our James and his would-be-should-be Barista Boyfriend (yes, it was he who wrote in last week!) I should know; I’m the most inquiring mind of them all! Alas, I have no news for you as yet. But if I know James, I think he would be happy to know we BB fans are doing just as his column would have us, and we’re content to imagine 100 happy endings for the very intriguing mystery their final entries left us to solve!_  
  
_If, like me, you need your caffeine-boosted love kick for the week, contributing editor Kamala put together a thoughtfully curated retrospective of her favorite BB moments (and accompanying 8track playlist! The girl doesn’t sleep,) in the K Corner. What a treat! Click to Join Kamala at episode 1 to see how it all began! [ continued on page 2]_

* * *

“Whatcha writing, Barnes, bringing work home with you?” Natasha bumped the front door closed behind her with her hips, her purse and a bag of takeout containers in one hand and her travel coffee mug in the other. “Chinese,” she said, setting the bag down next to him. Bucky hummed appreciatively.  
  
“Nice,” he smiled. “And no.”  
  
“Writing for _fun_?!” She gasped. “That’s not what Mantasy Magazine is paying you for.” Bucky continued typing.  
  
“This is definitely not for them.” Nat threw her coat over a chair and sat kitty-corner to him. Bucky glanced over, after a moment, as he noticed her watching him type. “You okay? You look exhausted.”  
  
“Thanks, I woke up like this,” she sighed, fluffing her hair. She changed the subject. “What is it? Can I read it or is it top secret? My day was rough.” She said nothing more of it and took the white boxes out, arranging them on the table. Bucky typed a final line with a punctuating punch and grabbed a dumpling, folding the entire thing into his mouth. “C’mon. Is it cute?”  
  
“Um,” he thought about it while he chewed. If he was reading her correctly, as he did perhaps one time out of her esoteric hundreds, she needed a distraction (hence the free food and all the questions.) Nat knew him from back before this cold war with himself, and with Brock. He was a one night stand serial destroyer, back in darker days. She wouldn’t judge him for this; they got through that hell together. So he decided. “Okay. Yeah, actually. I could use an unbiased critic. Here, read the first one. It’s from last week.” He handed her his laptop.  
  
“I’ll tear it to shreds,” she promised. “This look okay?” Natasha gestured to a plastic dish of some kind of stir-fry. Bucky nodded.  
   
“I love those little corns,” he said wistfully, picking one out with his hands. “Thanks, Nat. You’re a good egg.” She rolled her eyes, but sometimes, he thought, she should hear it. Nobody appreciated how fucking great she was. Not that he would take a bullet for her or anything, but, he would, maybe, if he wasn’t doing anything else that day, or if anyone threatened so much as a hair on her head. You know, nothing sentimental. Bucky tucked in to a box of fried rice, not bothering to break his chopsticks apart but instead using them to shovel uselessly towards his mouth like push broom. Natasha increased the brightness from his low-as-possible screen illumination and squinted, skimming over the text.  
  
“What’m I reading? Is this all in second person?”  
  
“Yup.” Bucky talked around a mouth of rice, contented.  
  
“Ooh. How trendy,” she smirked. “Okay. Let’s see what I’m supposedly up to.”

> **bliss-missive presents:**  
>  **Barista Boyfriend: Episode 1**  
>  **by James**  
>  _  
> Barista Boyfriend has a secret; you can tell.  
>  _

“Oh ho! The Royal We are intrigued,” Natasha declared. Bucky rolled his eyes.  
“Don’t read it out loud, Nat.” 

> _Barista Boyfriend has a secret; you can tell. Have you seen this guy? It’s written all over him, and not just in the literal paint of sharp, flowering ink murals down his sturdy arms._

“Well there’s a fancy way of saying bro’s got tats.”  
“NAT, just _read_ it!”  
“I’m _reading_ it!”

> _But you can see it in a boy like this: you can see he is not a barista when he walks out that door. The strong sweet curve of his back as he bends over the register suggests a subtle stability, roots and history deep in the bone of his earth. Deft fingers fiddle at the tie of his apron, and you wonder. His music plays overhead, and as he sways along, blue eyes bright with the stars and infectious joy of the dopey lyrics (is it legal for a coffee shop to play ABBA?) you realize, of course: he’s a musician._
> 
> _Barista Boyfriend has a secondhand guitar, pick guard scratched with lonely nights of practice, new strings on an old fret board, stars Sharpied on the body in a teenage phase that followed the entire songbook of David Bowie. The rest of the coffee shop fades away to a pale spotlight as the steamer whistles a starting pitch and he looks out from the pool of blues, blonde fade shining platinum, and his soul pours through his smile as a song. God help him, his tastes are varied as stones on the shore in this eastern (western? London? Seattle?) town as he hums along to Dylan, Parton, Panic!, Prince. He carries all these with him, in the streaks of color on his arms and in the meandering playlists he lovingly crafts for the cafe. His tapered fingers that can swirl a latte leaf stretch along octaves on the public piano in the shopping mall atrium, playfully humouring a little girl who requested Frozen (does Barista Boyfriend know the prince’s part? Of course he does, but he’d rather be the snowman, that cad.) When his childhood friend needs a bassist for the wedding, he’ll oblige. Or, he can keep up with effortless finesse on trumpet with the jazz quartet at the club, follow intricate rhythms like a squirrel darting through traffic. He keeps a little notebook of bad song lyrics._
> 
> _He’ll karaoke you under the table but not before you promise him the tackiest duet you can think of, and if anybody even dares to suggest Paradise by the Dashboard Light or I’ll Cover You, it’s all over. Karaoke Duet Suicide, and you’d bring the house down. Of course he’d invite you to coffee afterward, your handsome Barista Boyfriend, just a simple black in a styrofoam cup as you’d walk huddled through the evening’s cold streets, voices burned through and satisfied. And, as one last performance, at your doorstep, he might sing a few bars of Night and Day, or Bicycle Race apropos of nothing. If he were your boyfriend, you’d like this version best, Unplugged and Remixed by late night caffeine and the rush of closeness. He’d make you a mixtape very seriously labelled “Your Music Education” that only included thirteen copies of Papa Loves Mambo, and you would hear him howling with laughter when you put it on in the car and skipped through it angrily, the monster. You might get a mention in the liner notes of his next self-produced album, a wink from on stage, a free mug of dark roast, sure, but if he were the one for you, it would all pale in comparison to the little jingles he makes up on the spot, in the kitchen, at the park, wiping down the counter, first thing in the morning to wake you with a smile, some slant rhyme about the sheets, your absently clever Barista Boyfriend. And between your order and your change, you think of this, of all these sweet details if he were your boyfriend, to swirl into your morning coffee and leave behind at the counter as you make your way. Doesn’t that sound---_

“Hold up, I’m confused. Why aren’t I _actually_ dating Barista Boyfriend. If he’s my boyfriend, why wake me up at the end? That’s no fun,” Nat pointed out. Bucky faltered, rice tumbling off his chopsticks and back into the carton.

“No, no,” he shook his head. “ _Because_ , Nat,” Bucky insisted, “because--- because it’s all in the mind, you know? This is just supposed to be the fantasy You have about him. Like, you look at him in the coffee shop, and you say, hey, that guy is more than a coffee shop guy, he is also---”  
  
“An astronaut.”  
  
“Yeah! I mean, no. But it’s just like, what I imagine he does when he gets off work. Or like, who he could have been in a past life. Y’know. People like thinking about that stuff. Like when you get on a train, and you say, that guy is the one, out of all the people on this train. Apparently. The editor is crazy about it. She said the first three pieces got a hell of a lot of traffic,” he said proudly. “Maybe I’ll get internet famous.”  
  
“Why not, somebody’s got to. Not if you keep abusing commas like this though, jesus. Aren’t you an editor?” Natasha reached for her fortune cookie and suddenly her eyes widened. “Wait, is this a real dude?”  
  
“What?” Bucky asked though he heard very clearly and willed this conversation away.  
  
“Are you describing a real guy we know?”  
  
“No,” Bucky scoffed, lying too obviously, “no absolutely not. I do not--- know him.” He relented and Nat laughed, triumphant.  
  
“Incredible! Who is he,” she demanded. “Is he from work? It’s not Brock, you wrote he was blonde and buff and easy on the eyes.” Bucky jerked defensively, snapping his chopsticks and rubbing them together to smooth out the splinters.  
  
“Brock _is_ easy on the eyes.”  
  
“Debatable,” Nat shook her head. “Definitely not like this, though. Perfect Man is _Perfect_ ,” she finished, grabbing a piece of chicken from Bucky’s container and popping it into her mouth. Bucky scooted his box a little further away.  
  
“Yeah,” he sighed. “That’s the whole point.”  
  
“Well, just saying. I think if the column wants to progress,” Nat said pointedly, “maybe the next one should be what it would be like if you were already a couple. Because that’s what you’re going to be thinking about anyway, in a logical progression of human emotions. Like, not just pining. Not that you aren’t highly skilled at that, apparently. That, and ninety word sentences.”  
  
“Jerk.”  
  
“Sorry, you asked me to read you.”  
  
“Read it. Read _it_ , Nat.”  
  
“Easy mistake,” she smirked. “Send me this website. And give the Royal Us some nicer dates with Our communal perfect boyfriend.” Whatever tension she carried home in her shoulders had slid off and she looked much happier, so Bucky couldn’t really complain. He began considering a new tactic for his next Monday writing therapy session at the coffeeshop. What was the harm, really, in imagining he was the guy’s boyfriend? That’s what his audience wanted. Writers make sacrifices for their art. Just an imagination exercise, after all.  
  
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “Thanks for the critique.” And he did think about it. All week, he thought about it. By the time he was locking his bike to the lamppost in front of The Birdhouse that Monday, he thought he’d figured it out. Perfect guy, perfect boyfriend, fantasy writing. Harmless daydreams. But he felt the air suck out of his lungs in a dangerous catch as he opened the door; Barista Boyfriend looked up and locked eyes with him and honestly it felt like a personal attack. And that strong, cold voice in his head told him not to waste his time; if Brock was out of his league, this guy was 20,000 under the sea and he would just drown. But, he smiled. And miracle of miracles, Bucky managed to order a coffee. It was just pretend, he reminded himself. Just pretend, after all. He was allowed that much, if nothing else. Nothing else, no. Just his smile, today. So he smiled back.

* * *

 

> **bliss-missive presents:**  
>  **Barista Boyfriend: Episode 9**  
>  **by** **James**
> 
> _Barista Boyfriend has a secret. But Barista Boyfriend, as you well have learned, is a terrible liar. His eyes flit, his body hits a full blush, his words trip like tumbleweeds. So when he comes in to your shared mountainside cabin for a quick respite midday looking everywhere but your eyes, you ask.  
>  _  
>  _“Tell me what you’ve been doing in the eastern fields,” you say, hands on your hips dirtied from a morning spent with the horses. Your darling pours himself another tin cup of coffee from the pot he brewed this morning; it is lukewarm now, the copper long since cooled with the morning on the oak kitchen table where he left it (forgetting, as he always does, to put it back over the fire, in spite of all those years spent slinging exotic and expensive blends for that coffee shop, long behind you now.) He looks down at the floor while he takes a sip. Sweat stains his brow, your hard-working man of the earth, and his checked shirtsleeves are rolled haphazardly to the elbow. You roll one down, folding it back upward to the joint nicely though you know he’ll only undo it later and push it back up to scrunch all the same. “I thought you were clearing today.” He shakes his head and clears his throat, honesty radiating through him as color rises to his cheeks._  
>    
>  _“Yeah, I’ve been clearing out the western property line at the pond,” he lies. “You know that.”_  
>    
>  _“Oh. Yes, so you are,” you smile. He is up to something, your man, smelling for all the world of heavenly dark soil and the sky at dawn. He draws you in, leaving a kiss for you to remember him by as he takes a heel of bread from the table and his hatchet from its place near the door and returns to work. You sigh, watching him through the frame unabashedly, noting with a certain fondness that his slacks need mending or his muscular posterior is likely to bust right through the worn behind (not that anyone in this wilderness sanctuary save you would be there to graciously witness it.) This home you’ve build is sturdy, warm and welcoming, made your own with years of toil and care, and every day is a privilege to continue building with him, at a relationship and at a life here, tucked just beyond the foot of the mountain in the fields of barley you’ve planted. The work is hard for both of you, worth every strain of muscle and creaking joint to watch the stars flit across the sky at night (for wishes that haven’t come true yet,) and to share warmth wrapped in family quilts and whispers long into the morning (for some wishes already have.) You take an hour to write a few poems in an open journal by the bed; you find he has sketched a little sparrow on the page before and you smile, and suddenly you hear his boots on the path again._  
>    
>  _“Come outside, surprise ruiner,” he calls. “Can’t get anything past you.”_  
>    
>  _“Of course not, I’m the fun police,” you call to him as you open the door. You see him there in the bright dance of sunlight, blue smiling eyes all squints, a basket of wild blueberries in one hand and, preposterously, a small rabbit in the other. “How the hell did you get that?” You ask. He shrugs._  
>    
>  _“I picked them.”_  
>    
>  _“The bunny! You know I meant the bunny,” you rush towards him, hands out like a child. Barista Boyfriend does not surrender the bunny, but holds it just a little higher against his impossibly tall frame._  
>    
>  _“Well, I figured she’d be a nice addition to our rabbit hutch.”_  
>    
>  _“We don’t have a rabbit hutch,” you reply. He grins. You narrow your eyes. “We didn’t have a rabbit hutch yesterday,” you amend._  
>    
>  _“Wow,” he marvels, “somebody must have built one while you were cooking that complicated dinner I asked for last night,” he speaks in a falsetto to the little bunny, who naturally has no problem being cradled against his Miracle Bod. You grab for the bunny and he swerves away. “No way, I came to trade. You may have Prime Minister Bunsworth if you help me turn these into a pie.” He hands you the blueberries, a delicate treasure and the work of a few dedicated hours. You picture him out there, in the red-branched bushes with his small friend hopping beside. You pop a few into your mouth and set the basket down on the porch. You sit together on the wooden step._  
>    
>  _“A pie?” You ask dubiously. “For that bunny?”_  
>    
>  _“A pie for this bunny,” he repeats, bringing its little face to his own and nuzzling it, infuriatingly. “I could always let her go…” he smirks, watching the horror flash on your face. Instead he puts her in your hands, sweet as spring itself, and wraps himself around your shoulder, those arms that can tear the strongest limb to ribbons, that can cradle more gently than the breeze. “I ripped my pants catching that bunny,” he admits with a grin. You laugh to high heaven._  
>    
>  _“Who needs ‘em,” you reply, and---_

**  
Natasha**  
James buchanan BARNES  
  
**Bucky**  
_speaking_  
  
**Natasha**  
A BUNNY  
  
**Bucky**  
_Oops  
Hoppy easter lolol_  

 **Natasha**  
it is JANUARY  
I can’t believe this fluffy shit  
I cannot, i love it  
ugh  
U coming to Clint’s thing at school tonight?

 **Bucky**  
_Cant  
Brock finally called  
I'm at his place  
_ _!_  
  
**Natasha**  
srsly  
  
**Bucky**  
_Don’t start_

* * *

“Hey, I got an idea for your column,” Clint said over the phone, calling unexpectedly in the middle of a workday. Bucky welcomed the distraction; he otherwise had to draft an email apology to a designer they’d misquoted about his refusal to use plus-sized or diverse models. If it were his magazine, Bucky thought with venom, he’d drag the fucker like Hector behind Achilles’ chariot. But alas, ManTrash Monthly’s take was decidedly hip and elite: design is an art and this guy had a particular medium, which happened to be skinny white girls only. “Fuckery,” Bucky had grumbled, typing very polite words that totally opposed his principles. 

“What’s that, Clint,” he asked with a smile, saving to draft and leaning back in his chair. He waved over at Scott, who put a pen to his temple and pretended to pull the trigger. He shrugged sympathetically. Scott was too clever for this place.  
  
“Museum.”  
  
“Museum… what, exactly?” Bucky asked, brow furrowed.   
  
“A museum date. Barista Boyfriend is a huge dinosaur nerd. Or an anthropologist. Oh, neat, look at that!” His voice pulled away from the phone and came back, “Or like, Indiana Jones.”  
  
“Clint,” Bucky asked, putting two and two together, “are you at the museum right now?”  
  
“Yeah, how’d you know?”  
  
“Lucky guess. Field trip?” Bucky said, flinging a pen of his own at Scott across the room. Scott dodged it.  
  
“Yeah. Say hi, Gwen,” Clint laughed.  
  
“Hiiii, Mr. Barton’s Girlfriend,” a child wailed in the background, a chorus of giggles following.  
  
“I’m such a lucky girl,” Bucky smiled. “Thanks for thinking of me, dude.”  
  
“Sure. Oh f---udge. Get off of that, Wade, that’s history.”  
  
“You’ve got your hands full.” Bucky laughed. ”Do your job, man. Talk to you later.”  
  
“Aye aye, captain!” Clint hung up.  
  
_Kids_ , Bucky thought to himself. _Huh_. 

> **  
> bliss-missive presents:  
>  ** **Barista Boyfriend: Episode 14**  
>  **by James**
> 
> _Barista Boyfriend has a secret. After his shift at the coffee shop, he has been seeing other people. (No! Not just one! A plurality of people!) You want to trust him, honest, you do, but he talks on the phone in a hush tone, 'I’ve been really trying to get further with Miles. He’s got potential. I know; he’s cute. But Becky? Becky is a star, I want her to go far. Mmmhm. All the way to second base, and it was her first time out.' You can tell he’s hiding something from you. A conversation like that begs a lot of questions (none of them sane; most the kind you wouldn’t dare ask Dear Abby.)_  
>    
>  _“Where do you go on Thursday nights?” You ask one day, blunt, hurting, that worming jealousy having eaten through to the very core of your heart. Barista Boyfriend blinks, blushes, brushes a strand of golden hair from his forehead, looks anywhere but honest._  
>    
>  _“I have a thing, sort of. A club. Nothing to write home about,” he says. You nod, and you hold the pieces of your heart a little tighter. He notices; of course he does. “Don’t be mad. It’s really embarrassing. You can see for yourself.”_  
>    
>  _And on Thursday night, a canteen of his cold press and a lawn blanket in tow for what, you cannot surmise, you are to meet him at the Park just an hour before sunset. You look out on the grass and shield your eyes in the slanting light; where is your Barista Boyfriend? A child no higher than a garden gnome brushes past you in a whirl, sing-songing happily toward the baseball diamond. And you think you see, even against the glare, your strong-statured sweetheart there in the dirt, work apron and polo traded for a Red Sox cap and his favorite old t-shirt. Surrounding him, in the tiniest huddle, are scrape-knee sandlot kids from varying grades, kicking at the dust, laughing, cheering at intervals and never once taking their full attention from your Barista Boyfriend. Even as you get closer, you wish you could hear his motivational speech as the children shout in adorable unison, “YES COACH!” and scatter to the field in pairs to toss back and forth with each other. He beams at you as you set up a blanket among the parents and he waves. More than one mother notices._  
>    
>  _“Are you a friend of the Coach’s?” They ask. “Lucky you! What a catch!” And the pun is not lost on you, as he takes his time so preciously patient with each child as they learn the proper batting stance, runs back and forth from base to base as they cry out his name for guidance or encouragement when they catch a throw, laughs when they fall but picks them up so carefully to dust them off that you feel your heart knit itself back together in spades. He is a miracle with the kids; you had always suspected as much. You are so, so proud. The light fades as the park lights come on and the fireflies come out and soon the children are lost to the field, glowing quarry no match for grubby hands. You help one of the mothers hand out little packets of goldfish crackers and juice boxes; you haven’t smiled so genuinely in weeks. You feel Barista Boyfriend's very capable hands on your hips as you help a little buck-toothed boy with his straw._  
>    
>  _“Thank you!” The boy grins and scampers off, juice already, impossibly, all down his shirt. Your dear chuckles, resting his head on your shoulder, wrapping you warmly in dusty, muscled arms._  
>    
>  _“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I didn’t want you to think---”_  
>    
>  _“That you’re the American Dream?” You interrupt. “Too late, Babe Ruth.” You plant a kiss on his smiling lips and the kids whoop and groan in equal measure. Stars lazily hum into focus against the dark as the warm evening wears on and somewhere nearby an ice cream truck chimes its siren call to the bright-eyed youth. Someone’s dad is lighting sparklers for the kids who stayed behind. You are wrapped in the blanket and each other, watching the full thrust of summer spread before you like a snapshot from Better Homes. The crickets and junebugs are a full chorus around you, pleasant and soft. He presses a kiss to your temple. You catch yourself thinking past tomorrow. And as if he can tell, he holds you a little tighter. Surely, he will be there. Doesn’t that sound nice?_  
>    
>    
>    
>  _(a note from the editor: happy leap day to you and your boy and girlfriends, readers! Good luck thinking of anything else this week... warmer days are just around the corner. Who knows what spring will bring? A season of new beginnings for all, and new opportunities for all you would-be lovers... sounds nice to me, too! ~Janet)_

  
**Natasha**  
baseball??  
Where’s my smut barnes!!!  
Last week there was medieval smut  
I’m a busy woman  
  
**Bucky**  
_Hard line no @ smut with mention of children, nat_  
  
**Natasha**  
fair  
Less poetry more abs plz

 **Bucky**  
Soon enough, back to objectifying,  
I promise 

 **Natasha**  
Bless u

* * *

Sometimes the themes came easily to Bucky; he walked into the shop, took one look at Steve, and there was a fantasy waiting for him like an episode on the DVR. This morning, it took some doing just to get out of bed; it was the small hour that choked him cold with memories, and the creeping suspicion that Brock’s silent treatment meant he was getting bored and would toss him aside again. He would have to pretend he could hold himself together if that happened and not dive headlong back into the destructive person he was before that. He stared at his phone’s clock as the minutes passed and started counting the seconds in between, breathing as evenly as he could. It occurred to him, in a liminal space somewhere between breathing, that he could already imagine himself at the coffee shop, writing, happy, strung out on his favorite couch with something sweet. He hated how decadent it was, this self-indulgence, but he'd been reading one too many of Janet’s columns on self-care and was almost starting to believe them. He could see Steve’s wry smile so vividly in his mind’s eye, and if maybe that was the thing that helped him swallow the cold and put his feet on the floor, that was okay. Couldn’t let his readers down, could he? Couldn’t let Nat down, especially now that he promised her smut. He groaned just thinking about it. Nothing made him more self-conscious than typing lascivious love scenes in the very cheery, very well-lit and very public Birdhouse, not to mention in the very eyeline of the very objectifyable Barista Boyfriend himself. He’d hoped Natasha would forget but she was making herself tea as he left and she very obviously chanted “smut! smut! smut!” as he passed, banging her fists on the counter. He laughed; dopey and horrible as she was (she absolutely knew he would pretend to forget,) she was impossibly loyal, like some kind of mangey watchdog he never asked for but couldn't get rid of in good conscience. More likely, he was the dog in this scenario, and he was just lucky she let him stay.  
  
So Bucky was accidentally smiling when he walked in the shop, and maybe even chipper as he ordered a cinnamon latte and a scone from the manager at the till, who gave him the You’re a Regular nod and smile. Thankfully, Barista Boyfriend was otherwise engaged, fiddling with one of the overhead speakers which was producing crackling sounds over Dancing in the Dark. There was plenty of foot traffic for so early an hour, and Bucky let himself watch Barista Boyfriend in action, totally unabashedly, because he might just be curious about the sound system, he decided, and that was a totally innocent cover. But halfway through that sinful scone, obscenely delicious accompaniment to Barista Boyfriend’s obscenely twisting body on a wooden ladder, inspiration struck like a gym towel snap and if he was going to get weird, at least he could make it about sweets in a harmless kitchen setting. If Barista Boyfriend happened to stamp flour handprints all over him in the process, well. That was just an image he would have to work with, wasn’t it? Bucky tried to keep his twisting smile and the heat pooling in his abdomen at bay. Barista Boyfriend smiled at him when he came down from the ladder, wished him a good morning. Bucky would have had the courage to respond, too, if the last thing he typed had not included the words “heaving perfection.” Oh well, he thought. Better to keep one’s distance. In time he finished editing the draft and sent it to Janet. He allowed himself a thirtieth or fortieth glance at Barista Boyfriend and tried not to think too hard about Dream a Little Dream playing crystal clear around him, the bird-like whistle of a goddamn Disney prince behind the counter, the manager’s raucous laughter as he choked on a note just too high. If he glanced at Bucky and ducked behind a blush, laughing, Bucky would deny it. That would be too good to be true.

* * *

Steve Rogers took a deep breath and made a decision. He would say hello. Or, he would try.

* * *

_Have we seen the last of our author and his coffee shop love? On bliss-missive, I think (woe!) perhaps we have. But let’s not forget: James made us the hero. We are each of us the hero in this love story! That’s what I like best about this series. The second-person form isn’t just about a deeper connection: it’s a gift from the author to his audience! He brought us to the world not just as a reader but as a participant. And if we can imagine ourselves as happy as we are in a secluded cabin, in an English garden, in a local coffee shop, then we deserve to make that happiness real for ourselves, and we can! Positive thinking has immense power. James had the right idea: dream! Dream in every possible way. This has been ya girl Kamala, pop culture liaison, crying into her laptop for the Niche OTP of the Century, and wishing you your happy ending! Sure sounds nice to me ;) ~K._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this tides you over until tax season is over; we'll get back to linear time soon enough. BRB xoxo


	7. A Catalyst

Bucky starfished across his bed staring at the ceiling, tired smile a lasting echo of the day's sentiments stamped across his face. He could still hear Nat and Clint arguing in the kitchen. The rain had started again and the soft patter only served to remind him how it felt under the tree at the park next to Steve, all fresh sting and soft impossible warmth. He laughed out loud, touching his face to reignite the mark. He couldn't stop touching it; the swell begged for attention and he heard his mother's voice in his head, telling him to knock it off, let it be, go to the boy's house first thing in the morning to apologize to his folks, _say a rosary for God’s sake, Jamie_. She might whack him with a wooden spoon if it wasn't already dripping some kind of sauce. _Quit messing with it._  It didn't hurt so much as ache, probably wouldn't look too gruesome in the morning. He needed to go back out to the kitchen for something cold to soothe it, at the very least some Advil, but checked his phone to see if Steve had responded to his text. Priorities had shifted tectonically over the past few months, it felt. He didn’t hate it.

 **Bucky  
** _Home safe!_

 **Steve  
** Phew! Navigating with one eye could’ve been dangerous  
Get a pirate patch

 **Bucky** **  
** _Finally I can b a decent bond villain_  
  
**Steve** **  
** I believe in your dreams **  
** **  
** **Bucky  
**_Will I see you tomorrow?_

He probably should have responded with a joke instead, he lamented. _James "Jump the Gun" Barnes over here, gotta get that constant reassurance_. But Steve must not have cared. Or noticed. Or he noticed, and didn't care. Or he liked it! Or maybe Steve was just sleepy and achey and butterfly-breathless just to be texting him, as Bucky was.

 **Steve  
** Hope so!

 **Bucky  
** _Me too_

 **Steve  
** (...)

Bucky watched the dots disappear and reappear, some errant thought blinking in and out of existence. He decided not to be weird about it. He played that game a few too many times; Brock’s Bucky would obsess over things like this, dreading those dots like death itself. That Bucky was sleeping somewhere safe now, quiet. _Separate, but not dead_. He consciously cleared Brock's name from his thoughts. _This is what it could feel like to breathe free air, opening chords and little bells,_ he thought through a smile, looking at Steve's name on the screen. _This is also what a bruised cheek feels like, and what negligence feels like, and being a bull in a china shop of things you love,_ a darker voice answered. But Bucky swallowed it and left the phone on the nightstand, making a move for the kitchen humming a song he couldn't quite pin down. Steve wanted to see him again. It wasn’t news, but he liked it all the same. Natasha was still putting dishes away, if more forcefully than necessary. Clint sat on the counter beside, counting cash from her purse into a neat stack with great care. Nat watched Bucky as he went to the freezer for a bag of frozen vegetables. She stood between him and his way back to the bedroom.

“Sit your ass down and tell me everything that happened between you walking out and in that front door, James. I'm not above calling this barista asshole myself.”

“She’s mad because I’m about to buy a hundred and twenty gumballs with her money. But you’d better sit down,” Clint warned, fanning a few bills in front of his face like a coy duchess. “We made a five pound bag of muffins with you and you didn’t even bring any home, dude, come on. Not even one?” Nat threw Clint a look of one hundred years’ exasperation.

"He waltzes in here looking like rare meat and _that's_ what you're worried about? You ate a whole cup of the batter yourself. Salmonella should probably also be on your list of concerns." Clint only continued to fan himself with her money.

“They got soaked in the rain,” Bucky admitted fondly. “And you don’t really want all the gory details, come on. We’re adults.” But Natasha’s glare was fire and ice with no joke behind it, so Bucky pushed past her and sat down at the table all the same, knowing from her tone that he had to play the game. It wasn’t the time to be petty and mask. “Are you going to tell me you’re not mad, you’re just disappointed?” He quipped. Her eyes widened and Clint winced.

"I'm _sorry_ , you understand why I'm concerned, right? Bucky, God, the last time you looked like this?" she sighed aggressively. "You _just_ got yourself out of---"  
  
"I get it, Nat, believe me. It's fine. Please just---"  
  
"No!" Natasha was close to yelling now, a passion there she rarely let herself betray. "James! _You_ may not, but _I’m_ allowed to care!" A quiet followed and Bucky could hear in it the five hundred odd nights she talked him out of dark places, the mornings that followed or didn't, knowing and navigating and licking each others’ wounds when the world didn't care about either of them. Clint knew better than to break that silence, and he put the money down on the counter. Bucky sighed into his frozen peas.  
  
"I know that."  
  
"You're not acting like it."

"No, I'm sorry," Bucky relented but couldn't back down quite far enough. Steve was no Brock; could never be a Brock. "But it wasn't like that at all. Can you trust me to know the difference? Please?"

"Bucky,” Natasha swallowed hard. “You’ve always known the difference. You just--- fine. Fine, then you tell me how it was like," she said. "But don't act like I don't deserve to even ask. He hit you."

"I hit him first," Bucky admitted, quiet and short.

"Why?"

"I panicked, and I guess---" Bucky found the words weren't coming. He didn't know how to articulate what he felt in that moment, how scared and defensive and hopeful and high. Not to Natasha, the one person who wanted more for him than whatever he was dealt. Even in an author's lexicon, there weren't words he wanted to use. They stuck to his throat. "I don't know. I lashed out. I don't know why." Natasha's glare softened and he didn't want to notice, or think that in her quiet thoughts she knew why, and he did, too. "He--- I don't know. Neither of us meant it. It just happened. I swear to God, we talked it to death and figured it out. I apologized and he somehow forgave me. And he apologized even though it wasn't his fault. It was a horrible accident. I really thought I'd fucked it up for good," he said. “But this is different. Nat, it is.” Clint nodded in understanding and leaned back into the cabinets, patting the counter next to him for Natasha to sit. She hopped up next to him without breaking eye contact with Bucky.

“And then what,” she said. Bucky pressed the bag of vegetables into his eye. The freeze was a shock he winced through.

“Made amends, obviously. And then we went for coffee.”

“You went for coffee for the rest of the day?” Nat asked pointedly.

“It was a good day!” Bucky asserted. "You don't believe me, but it was probably the best day I've had in a year. I really mean that." Clint glanced between them and nudged Natasha's shoulder but she wasn't satisfied. Bucky pleaded. "Nat you don't know him, don't do that to him."

“No. I don't know him.” Natasha shook her head. "I know you. So tell me.”

So Bucky settled in, and remembered every excruciating detail out loud. It was still fresh in his memory, and glowing at the edges like a perfect vignette. He started at the first-aid kit. Bucky paraphrased where he could, but some details (most details, he conceded,) were just too sweet not to mention. The backs of Clint's bare feet thumping rhythmically against the cabinets punctuated the telling, and Bucky painted it in full color as best he could.

* * *

"There's enough gauze in here to wrap the dead," Steve had remarked, digging through medical leftovers in the Birdhouse Safety Kit. It had been raided over the years, for cuts and burns and kitchen hazards, the odd allergic reaction, picked over and refilled with whatever was on sale (Hello Kitty band-aids, it seemed.) Sam had (uselessly, while meaning well,) handed Steve the box upon their grand entrance, which, Bucky would have to admit later, was the most Tarantino moment of his week thus far. What a pair they struck, with Bucky's dark hair loose and spidering a frame for his puffing red eye, Steve nursing his knuckles, a dry crumble of blood under his swollen nose, both bedraggled with wet, plastered with sly debutante smiles like they spilled more secrets before their morning coffee than some high school hallways heard in a month. There was nothing in a first-aid kit to help, and Steve snagged warm rags from behind the counter. Bucky folded it over his warped eye and let his head fall to one side as he sat at the counter. Sam's glance flitted between the two of them sitting Last Supper at the counter, his arms folded and stemming a flood of what would otherwise be fire and brimstone. He'd looked absolutely triumphant when they first stepped through and knocked the door chimes, but his face hardened as he took them in. He finished a mocha and brought it to the other end of the counter for a waiting customer, and Steve let out a huff of relief.  
  
"Your head hurt?" he finally asked, turning to look him over. Bucky shrugged.

"No concussion, if that's what you're asking. I was only joking. You?"

"I don't know," Steve said truthfully. He wiped away the dried blood on his face. Bucky gestured to a smear he missed on his chin. "I've never had one, least not that I remember. Definitely not my first nosebleed, though. I think it gets stronger every time." He started to laugh and Bucky felt that smile tugging his own, magnetized.

"Ah, that's right," he remembered. "Steve Rogers, schoolyard scrapper." Steve nodded, tearing open a band-aid.  
  
"Glamorous, glamorous," he sing-songed. "Scrappy is the right word." Bucky tried to imagine that Steve: a tangle of limbs and skinned knees, chip on his shoulder and a playground glower. The younger Bucky was charmed by simple magic tricks and sci-fi paperbacks. He would have followed that punk half-pint around wide-eyed like a lost lamb.

"I wouldn't bet against you," he said appreciatively. "Bet that kid was a riot." Steve ducked the compliment, playfully sticking three band-aids to Bucky's free hand, though it was unhurt. Bucky warmed to the contact.

"You would have, if you'd seen me back then," the blonde said, patting the pink bandages delicately. "This seems sadly appropriate right now, huh. Two kids on time-out now after playing too rough in the park."

"Punishment fit for a very juvenile crime," Bucky replied. "Hey, you're a natural at this. Dress your own wounds as a kid, too?"

"Patched up worse owwies than this in my time," Steve caught Bucky's eyes with a playful gravity. "Hang in there, soldier."

"Be straight with me, doc," Bucky smirked lazily, already so fond of these little bits they played. "Am I going to make it?"

"Son, you've got nothing to worry about. The cooties have been cured.”

"Thank God," Bucky inspected the handiwork with his good eye. "The circle-circle, dot-dot shot treatment was really wearing me down. You're a lifesaver, Doc," he swore. Steve reached over the counter and snagged two mugs.

"That will be a million dollars, please,” he said. "Doctor's fees." Bucky frowned.

"Shitty bedside manner, though."

"Difficult patient," Sam glared at Bucky, sliding over a box of herbal tea, anticipating his roommate’s moves. Steve snorted as he unraveled a couple of bags. For the nine thousandth time in the past six months alone, Sam didn't know what to do with Steve Rogers, though he'd really held out hope that Bucky would somehow fix that. To see his roommate looking like a human bar fight immediately dashed that dream, and Steve was somehow chuckling through it all. "Okay, fine. Tell me nothing. That’s cool, no explanation necessary. You go ahead and laugh it up, Bozo," Sam sniped, "your pretty face has seen its last swipe right. You’ve got a schnoz like a Muppet right now." Bucky laughed out loud, and Steve ducked behind the counter. 

"Hey," Steve glared at Bucky as best as his wounded mug would allow. "Two on one isn’t fair, don’t take sides."

"Least he knows how to pick a winner." Sam extended a hand to Bucky, who took it in spite of his pink kitty accessories. "We never formally met. You're the writer from the Softcore Steve website, I know. I’m Sam Wilson." Bucky pretended he didn’t catch that.

"Sam, Bucky Barnes."  

"Uh huh. Well, now it's official. Bucky, I gotta ask." Sam gestured to his eyes. He knew better than to ask Steve, but even Bucky was less than informative.

"Complications,” Bucky shook his head gravely. “Cootie surgery.” Sam blinked, utterly unsurprised that somehow Bucky managed to be just as much of a little shit as Steve could be.

"Cooties gave you a shiner?" He asked, voice hollow. "You got nothing to say about this? Which one of you is selling the pink soap?" Steve swatted at him as he passed, heading for the bakery display. It was looking a little empty since Steve hadn’t been around to over-enthusiastically fill it, and he decided not to take anything of its limited supply lest Sam really unleash the fury. He made a mental note to come in extra early tomorrow.

"Don't be insensitive, Sam, cooties are a serious affliction," the blonde played along.

"You've got too much blood on your shirt to be behind the counter,” Sam warned. “Get your unsanitary ass out of there. Did you guys run into the Sharks on your way over or what?" Steve folded his arms guiltily, tucking a bloodied sleeve under and out of sight.

"I thought you wanted my help today!"  
  
"Yeah, when you're not a walking bio-hazard. I'm starting to rethink my position on this whole scenario," he said, gesturing to Steve and Bucky in a roundabout way. "I saw you two walk in and I thought, God is real, Samuel, and Steven Grant Rogers is here to save you from this undeserved Hurricane Peggy hangover. But no. It was all a dirty trick.”

"Sam, I'm sorry." Steve’s sincerity radiated and Sam looked about ready to swat it away. "I promise there's no trouble. Just give me an hour or so and I’ll be back with a vengeance."

"Yeah, yeah. You're lucky there's nobody here. I got one of the new kids coming in this afternoon, you're good to go ‘chill.’" Sam raised his eyebrows a little too knowingly as he filled the mugs with hot water and Bucky pretended not to notice, kept occupied with his wet rag and his shame. Steve sighed but met his glance with gratitude, taking the steeping tea to Bucky's favorite couch.

"Take it easy, Sam," Bucky saluted as he got up to follow the tea. Sam nodded.

"Likewise, Bucky. Hey, I’ve got my ‘eye’ on you, in case you’re looking for a matching set." Sam said pointedly, tapping his cheek where Bucky’s had the bruise. Steve groaned.

"Sam, c'mon. Don’t be a dad. It's all fine."

"Sure, sure," Sam said. "Hey, I’m just kidding." He wasn't kidding. "You kids have fun. If you need any drugs or condoms, ask me. I'm a cool dad, I'd rather have you do it in the house."

"Oh my god, _Sam_!" Steve pleaded.  

"Alright, alright. It’s all good. But I’m watching you like a hawk, Barnes. I know where all the knives are back here, you break anything other than his nose." Sam see-sawed between joking and dead serious, and Bucky hiccuped on his worry. Sam Wilson was probably not one to trifle with. Steve glared with a new fury but blossomed a full-body blush like he walked out of a description on bliss-missive. Bucky didn't give himself too much credit for this mirroring anymore; there was no chicken-or-egg debate in his mind, though sometimes it was unnerving. But Steve wasn't a character anymore. Truth be told, Bucky wasn't sure what he was. He shivered, from some combination of cold and uncertainty. Steve was going to sit down, and maybe, this was a date.

 _No_ , he told himself. _This was a strategy meeting. Time to iron things out._ Phrasing it this way calmed a ticking nerve. Steve set the mugs on the table next to each other and Bucky winced. He’d hoped they'd sit with the table between them, for professionalism's sake, but that idea quickly went out the window. He was the only one invested in the role play, it seemed. _Vintage Bucky_ , he thought to himself, _escapism to the nth_.

"How long have you guys been here?" he asked, hearing Sam get back to the register, a customer in need of a refill. Steve eased onto the couch, patting at his damp sleeves like any attention might draw them to dry faster.

"Sam's been working here since he was a teenager. 'swhy he's the manager now. The owner doesn't come around very often, but he's happy with the way Sam runs things."

"Did you guys meet here?"

"No,” Steve laughed. “Sounds cuter, though. No, I met him in high school. Track and field." Bucky did his best to erase whatever impulse was trying to flood his subconscious with images of Steve Rogers, glistening and muscled, like some kind of pubescent Olympics montage. He was suddenly thankful he didn't know him then. High school Bucky was not equipped to handle that level of attraction. It was all he could do just to pick which black t-shirt to wear in the morning. "He got me the job to help me pay for school. That wasn't so much a thing after I had to drop out, but, yknow,” Bucky saw shades of Barista Boyfriend as Steve ran his hand over the back of his neck in hesitation, “it's comfortable. Pretty good at it now, and I like it."

"You moved in with him right after high school?" Bucky asked, impressed. Steve shook his head, words forming on his mouth that he stopped halfway to admission.

"No, I--- I was still taking care of my mom at home then. When I had to leave the place, his was just the only obvious point B," Steve admitted. "Sam's been through a lot of similar stuff, we get on pretty well. I didn’t have anybody for a long time before I ran into him." Bucky watched his his eyes flicker over to the counter and he felt a new admiration then, for Sam.

"Casual threats aside, he seems like a great dude."

"Yeah. He'll come around to you." Steve seemed to be recalling something Bucky couldn't access, but he didn't ask. He vowed to get to know the guy better, even if they were going to be very bitter friends. "Eventually. When he's not in hangover hell."

"Where's your place?"

"Bout five El stops that way. Cheap little hipster bunker," Steve found himself revealing without hesitation. Bucky recognized that was probably not a casual question and instantly felt guilty. An old pang of reproof sunk in his chest.

"Oh. Um. Sorry, that's nosey of me."

"Nah.” Steve sipped his tea and genuinely didn’t seem to mind. He just offered up that trust like it was nothing, even to the guy that just socked him in the face. If Bucky unconsciously scooted a touch further away, Steve didn’t notice. “How about you?"

"Got a place not too far from here with a friend of mine. I like to bike to work. You could probably get there in ten minutes if you tried." Bucky's thoughts ghosted over Nat's face as she probably did her yoga in the living room and grumbled about their last text. That was probably an hour ago, when he admitted he was up a tree. No need to give her a live update, he thought. What would he even say? _All's well, socked him in the kisser, we're on a date now xoxo_? Great, that sounded nice. 

> " _Right, so no text at all was a better idea, James?_ ”

> “ _Natasha, I’m just trying to assure you I thought about it and decided it was stupid, okay? Can I go on with the story you demanded, here? I have half a stir-fry melting slowly into my eyes.”_

> _“Stupid is right. Go ahead.”_

"Bet your rent is my entire paycheck," Steve shook his head. Bucky laughed.

"Maybe. Selling out has its financial perks, I guess. Sure as hell couldn't afford coffee here every day on a real writer's salary."

"Guess I didn't need to be giving you all those free goodies on the sly, huh," Steve wondered. Bucky noticed the rain had softened Steve’s hair, stuck it up in sweet little cowlicks wherever it pleased, begging to be tousled. His fingers twitched. He nodded.

"Now that you know I'm a soulless downtown drone, I'll have to pick up my own charity treat tab."

"It was never charity," Steve scoffed, sipping his tea. "I liked you. Still do. You just never noticed." Bucky's heart twisted.

"I noticed. I just---"

"I know. It wasn't the right time. Timing isn't our strong suit," Steve smiled forgivingly. "Can I ask you a harder question, though? And you can tell me to shove it if it's not the right time. Again."

"Nothing I could tell you would be a surprise," Bucky admitted. Steve raised his eyebrows.

"How’s that?"

"Like everything I would be telling you right now, about my feelings? Or whatever." The writer sighed. "I wrote it all down already. All that revealed way too much too fast. From a military standpoint I've got no cards to play. I'm unarmed in an open field, here. Sitting duck. If ducks could be--- armed," he faltered. Steve smirked.

"Ah, yes, because I definitely inferred and was _expecting_ a fistfight in a dog park from your whimsical writings of my adventures as a mountain man." Bucky unfolded the rag and let it cover both eyes, hiding. The fucking mountain man again. _This is no time for kinkshaming, Steve Rogers._ _  
_

"I know that. But--- that’s--- this is not how you start a relationship," he said. What he wanted to say was, he worried he’d already broken it.  
  
“Is that why you took a swing at me?”  
  
“Clearly I couldn’t articulate it,” he groaned. Steve shifted to face him more clearly, though Bucky was well and truly hidden.

"Bucky. We’re at a blank slate as far as I'm concerned. Even--- well, my nose will heal. And I promise I’ll eventually stop making fun of Internet Me." Steve held up a hand in scout’s honor and Bucky scoffed. “Look at me for a second. I’m swearing I’ll leave him alone. I wrote one too, if you recall, and words are not my thing. I like to think we're on even footing for the time being.” Steve seemed to mean it, and Bucky was ready to let it drop. “Unless you want to start a full-blown novel about me, in which case I would like to draw the Fabio cover, if that's okay."

"Are you drawing again?" Bucky asked in earnest, though he noticed himself changing the subject on purpose. “You said--- I mean, has that changed?” He peeked out from his bar rag to gauge the other man’s reaction. Steve frowned.

"I guess not technically. But I feel like I want to. I miss it a little." The sudden gravity in his shoulders and press in his jaw told Bucky he missed it more than a little. He knew that feeling; writer’s block did that to him. You feel defective, empty, and wasting. He shifted to hold Steve’s gaze, soft.

"What do you need to get started?" he asked. The barista worried his lip, lost, as if he hadn’t asked himself before.

"Maybe just patience."

"I got a limited amount of that,” Bucky sighed, “but I can split it with ya if you really want."

"Sounds nice." Steve swirled his tea cup like it was wine, watching the dregs form a whirlpool.

"Art's hard, Steve,” he shrugged. Bucky was highly aware that Steve's hard question never resurfaced. He doubted Steve forgot; sure he noticed. He barreled into another subject with freight train confidence. “I feel you on that front. Sometimes you're on top and other times you're just staring into an abyss and you've got nothing."

"Art IS hard!" Steve agreed vehemently. "Art is so fucking hard!"

"But a worthy cause. Creating and expression and all that," Bucky offered. Steve nodded.

"Exactly. Exactly right," he said, a little sadder. "I guess you have a pretty good idea how it works. What kind of stuff do you want to be writing? What's your ideal art? Besides me on a mountain," Steve asked with that shitty smirk, tilting his head like all the scenarios of Barista Boyfriend were flashing in his mind and Bucky couldn’t do a thing to stop it.

"Shit," Bucky huffed. "I guess I really want to write something huge. Really stretch my limbs out on some really ugly, long piece of nonsense. Serious bullshit. Like, ten page descriptions of trees. I've been cramped into word limits and style guides for so long. It gets tiring. I think that's why some of those Barista Boyfriends got so absurd, really self-indulgent stuff. I just wanted to paint pictures with words, you know?”

"I want to do the opposite," Steve smiled widely. “You know, it’s a real a shame you get to work with words for a living and they just suck so bad.” Bucky barked a laugh.  
  
“Well gosh, don’t hold anything back.”  
  
“I’m sorry. Those articles are so bad. They’re--- they’re so bad, Buck.”  
  
“I know. I don’t write them, I just edit.”  
  
“Why not?” Steve whined. “It’s a perfect job for you if they would just use your talents.”  
  
“Easier said than done,” Bucky said. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t begged for opportunities in his earlier days at the magazine. He thought by now he’d have some greater pull. He did not. “Stark lets me write a blurb now and then, but unless I can really get his attention they’ll never cut me loose from the chopping block. I’m really good at it. Not to be modest, but I get why he keeps me around.”  
  
“Well it’s nice to be good, but it’s better to be happy,” Steve shrugged. “You need one really great story idea to pitch and once they see what you can produce, they’ll see how valuable you are.” He perked up suddenly. "Hey, you know what we should do?"

"What's that?"

"We should be accountability buddies. Like gym buddies, kind of a peer pressure thing until we get into a groove making things for ourselves again."

"Sure," Bucky laughed. "Can we wear sweatbands and drink gatorade?"

"Of course. That's a given."

"Alright,” Bucky agreed, trying to shake the instantaneous image of himself and Steve sitting in some country bed and breakfast reading nook on a Sunday morning, fresh coffee and toast, quietly making art and commenting once in a while across the table on the album they were listening through. He couldn't seem to stop himself today; his imagination was going haywire in such close proximity. “I think I could get into that. No bullying, though."

"Oh? No tough love?" Steve asked, not entirely invested but curious all the same. Bucky winced. He’d known plenty of bullies. He could be a bully much too easily if anyone let him. His mean streak was dark and dry, a kind of undernourished pain that when he let it loose lashed like a bullwhip.

"That never helped anyone accomplish anything. Besides, I'd be too good at it, no offense," Bucky tried to make it seem like a joke. Steve quirked an eyebrow.

"I don't believe that."

"Alright,” Bucky’s voice took on a shadow. “You disappoint me and you're not producing anything worthwhile with your life and when you leave this world you'll leave nothing behind for posterity. You piece of garbage."

"Jesus Christ,” Steve gaped. “Yeah, none of that.” Bucky’s lips twisted almost imperceptibly.

"Motivating enough?" he asked. Bucky swallowed hard and Steve, by proof or providence, picked up the vibe and went in another direction.

"No, that was a failed experiment. How about we promise only positive reinforcement,” he offered. "Honesty being the best policy but kindness coming first." Bucky didn’t typically accept that sort of thing, at work or at home. It never felt real, or more truthfully, like he deserved it.

"My ego's such a delicate monster. I don't know if I can take too much praise before I totally become putty,” he admitted.

"Good. Then I’m going to go for gold,” Steve joked, using the same cold and pointed tone Bucky’d used. “You're a revelation. I think when you finally get your chance, you're going to blow everyone away. When you see that about yourself you’re going to really shine."

"Oh, come on,” Bucky laughed, and Steve nudged him with his shoulder, because he felt he could.

"Well, that was just honesty. Imagine how thick I'll lay it on when you really need me." Bucky maybe let those last words ring and settle a little too long: _when you really need me._ He hoped Steve didn’t notice him shiver, just slightly, and if he did, that the cold and damp forgave him the sin.

"I can't wait."

"Okay. Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll get our acts together and work hard and be proud of that. What if we did like, Saturday mornings? Meet somewhere, switch it up every week," Steve offered. "Really work on something good together?" Bucky nodded, considering it. He couldn't help but notice that the last part sounded like Steve wasn't talking about art.

“Sounds nice. I’m a little worried I’ve forgotten how to do that,” Bucky admitted, and he wasn’t talking about art, either. Steve nodded, understanding.  
  
“But remembering together is easier. I think it’ll be good for us,” he said, blue eyes clear with hope. “Not a date, though,” Steve cut in fast, a swivel and backpedal that caught Bucky off-guard. “You don’t--- we’re not--- right? That’s---” 

“No. Not a date,” Bucky confirmed, and Steve let out a breath he’d been holding.

“Yet.” 

“Sure.” 

“Right.” 

“Can’t distract from the art.”  
  
“No, obviously. Art first.”

“Dating second.” 

“If then!”

“If ever!”

“Art first!”

“Feelings later!”

“What?” Sam cut in, clearly listening as best he could from the counter. “What was that?” He called over the end of Take Me With U filtering through the speakers like a hymnal. Steve ignored him, and caught Bucky’s stare in a moment quiet with the music behind them, highlighting their predicament. The feelings, unspoken or otherwise, were clear. Bucky’s eyes betrayed his defenses; there he was in soft-focus and sighs, and Steve felt an ache that echoed his own. Bucky cleared his throat.

“But yeah, no, absolutely. I’m with you.”

“Yeah. "

“This is a great idea.”

“Yeah.”

“Stop staring at me.”

“I don’t think I can,” Steve laughed, shaking his head hopelessly. Bucky grinned before he could stop himself.

“Maybe you have the concussion.”

“Maybe.” The blonde’s lazy smile could have sated Bucky for the next fifty years, frozen in time. They sat for a moment just settling into the furniture, the music now softly highlighting the rain, floral tea steam and the fading sting from the morning’s fight fogging the edges into a dreamlike peace. Steve suddenly perked, looking past Bucky out the window behind him. Bucky noticed and followed his gaze.

“What?”

“Great dog in the rain,” he smiled, pointing to a very tall greyhound trotting past the cafe under their owner’s umbrella. “I’ve seen that guy at our park.” Bucky felt that ‘our’ like a warm breeze.

“You and Sam ever want to get a dog?”

“Only every day of my life,” Steve sighed. “Oh god, let me show you this dog. He’s at the humane society shelter downtown.” He scrambled in his pocket for his phone and pulled up a photo of a big fluffy brown and white dog, looking uncannily like a giant stuffed bear with a lopsided puppy grin. “This is Hambone. He’s definitely a mutt but the coloring is kind of beagle, I think, which is bizarre. His fur is so soft-looking.”

“He looks like a cloud," Bucky agreed. It was a great dog. But even better was the look on Steve's face, like he was cradling a newborn miracle in his hands on the screen of his phone.

“I know," he crooned. "Look at that face."

“This is your dream dog?” Bucky asked. Had he ever looked like that in his life, he wondered, wistful and wanting written so clearly on his face? Probably on this exact couch, he thought, looking at Steve.

“Nah, he’s just the dog of the month on their blog. He’s great. I hope he gets a good home. He’s way too big for my apartment. He needs like, a family home with a yard and tiny children to ride on his back and protect,” Steve mused, affection in his eyes like he’d dreamed that scene before.

“Like the one in Peter Pan?” Bucky asked with a smirk. Steve nodded with a sigh, turning the phone off and pocketing it again.

“He just looks like he doesn’t belong there, you know? I mean none of them do, but he just looks like a family needs him.”

“Yeah. You follow the shelter’s blog?” Bucky finished his tea and set down the empty mug.

“I do. It’s torture. They always post when there’s an overflow or when they really need donations, and that’s all the time. It just breaks your heart.”

“I bet.”

“You know, when I was a kid---”

* * *

“Okay, I’m gonna stop you right there, Dickens,” Natasha interrupted, rubbing her face sleepily. “We're not paying you by the word.”

“Nat, you’re the one that wanted all the details!” Bucky laughed, rearranging the frozen bag on his face. "But you get it now, right? It was just--- it wasn't as bad as it looks. On my face." Natasha was slumped wearily against Clint, her patience all but tapped.

“I am glad you seem to be telling the truth and we don't have to have a difficult talk. I can tell you really like him, James,” she relented. He could tell it didn’t sit right with her, though, that this wouldn’t be the end of the argument even if she was too tired to really fight him on it. “And that’s nice. Is that the long and the short of it, then? Is there any kissing in this story or did you guys just chat about things that make you sad for the next four hours?”  
  
“You asked a writer to describe his day,” Clint pointed out. Nat shrugged.    
  
“I thought there were going to be make-up make-outs! Not some fisticuffs foreplay in the park and chatting over tea for rest of the afternoon.”

“I don’t know, that sounds kind of nice,” Clint mused. “I’d call that a good day.”

“I would, also! Thank you, Clint,” Bucky pouted. He heard a chime in his room and too-eagerly jerked his head towards it. Natasha noticed, as she ever did.

“I’m happy you two are speaking, that is a great improvement from the weeks of wallowing,” Nat ceded. “I want to know the minute you liplock, okay? Just for my own sanity.” Bucky swallowed. He had glossed over that moment at the park. Then again, he wouldn’t count that as a real kiss. His lips tingled at the memory.

"You were the one that said we didn't even have to date!" Bucky exclaimed. Nat nodded.

"You don't. Kissing is different. Sometimes better than hitting,” she said pointedly.

“You’re awfully invested,” Clint nudged her, enjoying her obvious weakness. Nat held her chin a little higher. 

“I have followed this relationship from the first issue, I’ll remind you. And its author since before he was cool.” She hopped off the counter and headed silently towards her bedroom. “I’m glad you had a good day, James,” she said finally, turning back to face them. "But I want to talk to this punk. Face to face." She motioned for Clint to follow, but he stayed for a moment after she’d gone. He slid to the floor, perpetual pajama pants and t-shirt already calling him suitable for bedtime. He yawned big and sloppy, moving over to the table. 

“She'll be nice, don't worry. Sounds like you’re on the right track, dude. You happy how it went?” he asked, oddly fond. Bucky nodded. “Good stuff. Can only go up from where you were. You’re ready for better things. The art workshop situation is a great idea. But we can bake more if that helps, that was a lot of fun.” He slapped Bucky on the shoulder as he passed. Condensation from the long-melted bag of peas dripped down Bucky’s cheek, feeling distinctly gross. His eye didn’t need it anymore. _Nothing hurts_ , he thought dramatically, making himself laugh. He tossed the bag back into the freezer; he knew Nat would throw it away tomorrow morning and love chewing him out for putting it back. He wondered at the text waiting in his bedroom and the question warmed him. It wasn’t a bad place to be, the edge of a new and exciting thing. He was looking forward to tomorrow. Hell, he was looking forward to that text. He flopped on his bed, down to his boxers, and let the glow of the phone light his face.

 **Steve  
** Today was nice  
Wouldn’t mind doing it all over again  
Goodnight Buck :)

It took another full hour to quiet his mind enough to let sleep win over. Bucky was a little glad he didn’t get to the end of his story with Clint and Nat. Their goodbye, rainy and sweet and full of promises, was his to keep. He had a feeling Sam was watching, but he didn’t care. He looked back three separate times on his way down the block. Each time, Steve was still there, hands jammed in his pockets, watching him go like he couldn’t look away if he tried.

 **Bucky  
** _Sweet dreams Steve_

 **Steve  
** :) :) :)  
You too

Bucky was surprised to see a response. Usually one goodnight apiece was enough for these situations. He smirked, imagining Steve on the other end.

 **Bucky  
** _Gotta have the last word huh_

 **Steve  
** No

 **Bucky  
** _C’mon! good night!_

 **Steve  
** Good night! This is the last one I promise

 **Bucky  
** _u sure?_

 **Steve  
** Yes. You’re doing this on purpose  
…  
Sleep tight :)

 **Bucky  
** _U2_

 **Steve  
** STOP IT

 **Bucky  
** _I’m just being polite_

 **Steve  
** GOOD NIGHT THE END

 **Bucky  
** _Zzz_

 **Steve  
** BUCK  
Sorry. The last one can’t be me yelling at you either

 **Bucky  
** _Sheesh let me sleep_

 **Steve  
** You’re the worst goodnight goodnight goodnight  
You want the last word go ahead  
I promise I won't respond  
go.

 **Bucky  
** _< 3_

To that, Steve could make no response, and Bucky grinned into his pillow, imagining him somewhere in soft pajamas and that full-bloom blush. In his room across town, Steve stared at that heart for a good full minute, angry he couldn’t send just one little heart back, not even just one if he wanted to prove a point, but he was nonetheless somewhere over the moon on his own bed of stars just thinking about what it meant for tomorrow and after that.

* * *

Bucky woke up late, phone still on the pillow next to him. The sun was a little too bright, and he bolted in and out of the shower. 

 **Bucky**  
_I fucked up ahhh_ _  
_ _Won’t have time to get coffee_ _  
_ _You’re already up I bet_ _  
_ _  
_ **Steve**  
Baking for days  
I made cinnamon bread while u dreamed  
  
**Bucky**  
_jesus_  
_I had a dream about your dog!_  
  
**Steve**  
HAMBONE  
HE IS AN INSPIRATION  
PLEASE WRITE A WHOLE MAGAZINE ABOUT HIM  
I’ll see you later!  
  
Bucky laughed, tucking his slacks into his socks to jump on his bike. Steve sent a string of sunny emojis and Bucky could tell he was busy at work, but those stupid little pictures put a bounce in his step that coffee could not. One of them was the cat with heart eyes, which seemed straight-forward, but then again, there was also a pizza and a little green box with the rising price of yen. He found himself smiling at coworkers and smiling even more in response to their visible shock; he must be a pretty sullen guy if the girl at the front desk looked so suspicious when he greeted her, he joked to himself. He shared the elevator with a handful of faces he’d seen in and around the office, no one in particular that would call him a friend, all of them inhaling various colors and blends of coffee. The scent made Bucky heady, bringing him back to his favorite couch in his favorite sunbeam, and he pulled out his phone. Steve sent him three pictures of that dog he was crazy about. He flipped through cheerily, and in the middle of a wandering thought about his sweet barista and this fluffy dog, the spark of an idea flashed. With every step towards his desk, the idea got bigger and brighter until he nearly pounced on his suite mate with its energy bubbling over.  
  
“Scott Lang, good morning to you, my dude, my buddy,” Bucky clapped Scott on the back and startled him out of thought. Scott eyed him suspiciously. 

“You're awfully chipper. Do you need something from me? Did I miss a deadline or something?”

“No man,” Bucky laughed. “And I didn’t get laid either.”

“So what’s your secret, starshine? If you’ve got coke we need to talk. About how you’re not sharing coke.” 

“Not my scene. And you would not do coke even if I _had_ coke, Mr. Daddy,” Bucky flicked at the photo of Scott’s daughter stuck to his monitor. Scott cocked his head and looked past him as Bucky realized why. 

“Barnes, only I go by Daddy in this office,” Tony passed effortlessly on his way to his office. “Bring me the argyle spread, Lang. I think I want more sock jokes of the masturbatory variety before you send it downstairs. Barnes? You in?”

“Stark, not on your life,” Bucky asserted, his grin nervous and crooked. His boss stopped in his tracks and spun on a dime, not used to hearing no in so many words.

“Sorry, I think I just hallucinated you smiling, I was distracted. What do I pay you for, exactly?” He asked, a warning in his tone. Bucky swallowed and took a chance. A plan rang in his head like a bell.

“Today? My sound opinion. You want it? I’ve got the idea of a lifetime,” he said coolly, shifting his weight to a more casual stance. Scott watched curiously.

“Okay.” Tony folded his arms and took a breath, screeching his usually manic pace to a halt. “Shoot.”

“Hambone.”

“Right, your opinion is no longer necessary.”  
  
“What the fuck?” Scott was laughing so hard the words didn’t come out fully. “What the fuck is that? A band?”  
  
“No, Scott, but I’m glad you asked, because it’s this great dog I saw on a shelter website. Possibly the best dog in the city and definitely a dog that’s going to make us a lot of money," Bucky defended his position. Scott swallowed his laughter and nodded, trying to play along.  
  
“I had you pegged for a cat person, definitively,” Tony asserted. He squinted for a second and Bucky didn’t dare breathe. He suddenly nodded. “Come talk socks and pretend like you are a contributing member of this magazine. And then I want to see this magic dog.” Tony swaggered off into his office and shut the door behind him; the invitation clearly meant in twenty minutes or whenever that door opened once more. Scott started to howl again. A pair of junior editors passed their bank of desks on their way to the elevators, exchanging a look that meant they clearly were not going to ask what was so funny. He wiped a tear from his eyes, recovering.  
  
“Barnes, oh my god. Where is your filter today? Hambone. Mother of _god_ , that was hilarious, holy shit. I’m crying.”  
  
“He wants to see my dog,” Bucky shrugged. “I call that progress.”  
  
“You weren’t kidding? Good lord. That was almost office banter. With Stark! You’re going to have an inside joke! God, am I jealous?” he said, disbelief suddenly hitting him full force. “Did I just see you get a raise?”  
  
“I wouldn’t count on it. But if you’ll excuse me,” the triumphant writer grinned, “I have pictures of an excellent dog to print.”  
  
“Since when are you into dogs? What’s this about?” Scott asked as Bucky cracked open his laptop, setting it down to lean in and find the pictures of Hambone on the humane society page. He was oddly relieved to see no one had adopted him.  
  
“Who isn’t into dogs?” he replied noncommittally, sending the images to print to bring in to Tony. “Dogs are the best.”  
  
“Sure,” Scott said, “but that--- do you want a dog?”  
  
“God,” Bucky huffed, “I do. But I probably--- I can’t take care of a dog. You know? This job, and--- all that.” He floundered with an excuse. Scott had a family and a house. As far as Bucky was concerned (and would never admit,) Scott had several points on him in the game of Life.  
  
“People seem to manage okay,” Scott said. “Dog walkers. Friends who also like dogs. Like me.”  
  
“You saying you’d walk my dog for me?” Bucky asked absently, typing quickly and managing the print queue.  
  
“If you got a dog I would find weird non-work related excuses to come over,” Scott said. “We’d become actual friends.”

“Aww,” Bucky smiled. “Scott, that’s sweet. I’m not getting a dog, though.”  
  
“I don’t know, Mr. Walking On Sunshine but Definitely Not on Coke,” Lang wondered aloud, “you seem to be full of spontaneity today. I got a good feeling about that sock spread.”  
  
“Oh, we’re going to crush that sock situation, I have no doubt at all. And,” Bucky retrieved a stack of dog pictures from the printer, “we’re going to adopt all of these dogs, Scotty. You and me.” Scott blinked.  
  
“Are you asking me to marry you? What’s happening here?”  
  
“Trust me.” Bucky couldn’t believe he was going through with it, but the morning’s energy and last night’s lingering sweet propelled him forward. Steve said he needed one great idea, and Steve was right. He also happened to _be_ his great idea. “Just wingman me like you’ve never wingmanned before and I’ll buy you lunch, deal?” Scott considered it.  
  
“I believe the past tense is wungman, but for all-I-can-eat sushi I will be the best damn Goose you’ve ever seen.”  
  
“You’re on.” Bucky grinned and wanted desperately to text Steve, but Tony’s door swung open. He glanced at his now vital paperwork. The dog’s goofy face stared up at him, no earthly idea how important he would be in this moment.  
  
_No pressure, Hambone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hambone was the name of a shelter dog circulating on Tumblr for a while that just annihilated my heart and I can't find his photo anymore. Let me know if you find him <3


	8. Dinumeration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Plan  
> 2\. Pitch  
> 3\. Assemble  
> 4\. Execute  
> 5\. ???

“Gentlemen. Socks.” Tony called into the office dull and dark as a reaper and Bucky couldn’t help but think of a bleak poem, a tolling bell. He looked to Scott, who held up a packet of photographs and gestured to Bucky to lead on. The photo shoot was cute, even Bucky would admit, and it ran the gamut of sock-related sex humor. Peter had done well with their suggestion: they went with a Risky Business theme and had an incredible lineup of pretty girls in Ray Bans, white dress shirts, and a variety of very fashionable socks. They had a couple of B-shots of socks discarded next to motel beds, socks on doorknobs, nothing too difficult to decipher. Tony could probably come up with sexy sock puns on his own if he wanted to, but his time was worth more than theirs, and he more than anyone could not resist Scott Lang's secret power. it happened that Scott, marketing manager though he was, managed to be better at puns than anyone in the building. Bucky was pretty sure Lang was just average at portmanteaus before he became a parent, but by virtue of making a child earned membership to the elite League of Extraordinarily Bad Jokers and then became their dad-king. When properly encouraged, he could make an entire board room groan in unison. He needed a push, and Bucky knew exactly how to do it. He pushed, and Scott worked a miracle. So when Tony Stark’s defenses were weakest, wiping tears of laughter after a barrage of sock and stocking-related sex puns, Bucky laid down a pitch.

“Now about my dogs, Stark.” He felt more conviction in his veins than ever before. He realized it might be because he finally cared about the work he could be doing. Tony sized him up.

“About your dogs. Since when are you a dog person?” Stark didn’t like being incorrect; he was sharp as a tack and secretly very proud of his ability to show caring without sacrificing his outwardly powerful image (a careful way of saying he put his money to benevolent uses when possible, and never wanted to talk about it.) He bought Lang’s little girl a birthday present every year. He somehow got Peter the latest studio gadgets before Consumer Reports could even get their hands on them. Bucky recognized that he might actually win Stark over strictly by virtue of caring about the dog.

“Are _you_ a dog person?” Bucky turned the question. He was going to snipe this pitch with 100% accuracy. He was going to get this job done. Stark could see the determination, and folded his hands behind his head, trying to get a read.

“I have owned a few choice pooches in my time as a forgotten child whose love was bought, yes. Thanks for opening the wound. What’s your point?”

“Have you ever seen a dog this great?” Bucky tapped the full-page color of Hambone like it was a military map. Stark tilted his head and leaned in.

“This is a great dog.” He adjusted his glasses and his face softened a bit. Bucky saw it, and struck.

“There is a whole room full of great dogs downtown that need homes, Stark.”

“I am aware of the plight of the shelter system,” Tony said, looking for Scott for some kind of pushback. Scott offered none, but looked as invested as possible in Bucky’s pictures. “What do you want me to do about it? We are not adopting an office dog, kiddo, your mother and I talked about this.”

“Imagine this dog in that photo shoot, though.” Bucky tapped Scott’s folder and Scott immediately picked up the line.

“Hey, sure. Foot of the bed, feet tangled and soft focus, whatever implicative image you want. Dog’s in full foreground, sock in his mouth, bra at his feet. Little bit of comedy. Great opportunity for a doghouse or doggy-style mention,” he offered. Bucky nodded.

“Exactly, yes. But give the dog a photo credit and a little blurb about the shelter. You lose nothing and you gain infinite philanthropy cred.” Bucky kept a smile at bay and kept a professional apathy. He had to hook Stark; he wouldn’t get another pitch shot like this for weeks. “Can’t put a price on that, Tony.”

“People aren’t even going to read that blurb, Barnes,” his boss wavered. “Where do you think you are, a reputable periodical? This is the Cookie Crisp cereal of magazines. You want nutritional value, you buy National Geographic.”

“That’s not a decent reason not to try. I’ll put Doreen on it, she’s dying to do more with the social media. She’ll tweet about the dog and see if it gets any hits. Stark, animals are huge on the internet. Imagine if we had a mascot.”

“I can confirm that animals are huge on the internet,” Scott said. “As your marketing manager and also someone who owns a computer.” Tony rolled his eyes.

“How old do you think I am, Lang? I know how the internet works.”

“Of course, sir. Just making sure, sir.” Scott looked down at the conference table. Bucky wouldn't tear his eyes from his boss; Stark chewed his lip, tapping irrhythmically on the table in consideration.

“It’s not a bad idea, Barnes. But I wanted this spread down to layouts for edits in twenty-four hours. If you manage to get this dog on that page tomorrow morning, you can do whatever you want with the Twitter, I don’t care.” Bucky’s heart lurched into freefall. _Steve is going to lose his mind!_

“Excellent,” he nodded. “We’re gonna save dogs, and we’re gonna make money.”

“Like a beautiful Lifetime movie,” Tony pursed his lips in a quick smile. “I’ll hold you to it, Sarah McLachlan, get going. Everything has to be in by tomorrow. And I mean everything, including that HR shit for Sharon you were supposed to get in Friday, yes I know about that. Go; you look like I gave you keys to the Wonka factory. Earn your paychecks, for God’s sake.”

Bucky tried not to seem too eager as he and Scott frantically gathered the paperwork and left Tony’s office. When the door closed, Scott barely had time to high five him before Bucky was bolting to his desk.  
  
“How exactly are you going to swing this? Don’t you have to meet with the board at noon?” Scott asked, tossing the manila envelope of sock photos to Bucky’s desk.  
  
“I do,” Bucky said, tapping erratically at his phone while trying to text Doreen; he was only shaking a little bit but it was starting to make things difficult. “And I will. I just have to keep the pieces all moving.”  
  
**Bucky**  
_Heads up D_  
_I have a huge assignment for you_  
_Huge huge huge_  
_Dogs!_  
  
“I don’t know, dude,” Scott let out a huff as he settled back into his rolling chair, a picture opposite of Bucky’s panic. “This sounds like that part in Cinderella, where she--- the wicked witch throws a bunch of shit on the ground and says ‘Cinderella you have to pick it all up like in an hour’ or she can’t do to the ball.” Scott’s voice went a register higher imitating a grandmother’s and Bucky didn’t have time for it.  
  
“No. The cinders. That’s the title of the story, Scott. She threw lentils into the _cinders_ .”  
  
**Doreen**  
Wait what  
ON MY WAY BOSS  
  
“They would have caught fire, that’s ridiculous. Give me some dad-cred here, I think I read that one to my kid a couple of nights ago,” Scott insisted. Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose.  
  
**Bucky**  
_You are NOT gonna believe my DAY SO FAR_  
_I need your help w a project??_  
_please?_  
  
“You told your small daughter, ‘the witch threw a bunch of shit on the ground,’ Scott?”  
“I am a great storyteller, okay. I know a fairy tale when I see one. This is a fairy tale.”  
  
**Steve**  
Of course!  
Let’s make it happen, What’s up?  
  
“Then I’m going to be the belle of the fucking ball, Scott Lang, I can have it all.” Bucky tensed and relaxed his hands in rapid succession, stretching out his neck and shoulders like he was prepping for an Olympic trial. Scott smirked.  
  
“I believe you, man. I’ve never seen you like this. I’m either scared or turned on, which is weird but not new for me, to be totally honest, which is something my therapist always told me was---” Scott rambled for a moment and Bucky stopped listening, which was for the better.  
  
“Shit, what was that HR thing he was talking about---” Bucky frowned at his open laptop, reaching down to scroll through his open tabs and look at his emails. “Sharon? I thought I sent Sharon---”  
  
“Are you going to have to adopt that dog?” Scott interrupted, clearly uninterested in his own work. Bucky looked up.  
  
“We, Scott. We are getting that dog adopted, one way or another. And I have not forgotten about your sushi, my angel, don’t you worry,” Bucky said, firing a very honest email to Sharon in HR.     

> _Did I forget to send you something? What’d I fuck up? -JB_

“How are you going to do all this, Barnes? This is a lot for one guy and his plucky intern,” Scott said offhandedly, almost asking a different question. Bucky took a moment to catch his breath. He felt like he was assembling a heist team. Bucky’s Eleven. And it dawned on him not so subtly that he hadn’t actually asked Scott to play.  
  
“You have any plans tonight?” Scott perked up and shook his head. “Want to keep helping me and we up it to two sushis?” Scott split such a wide grin that Bucky wondered if he’d ever seen him genuinely happy before this moment, it was so startling.  
  
“I’m in, you had me at hello. But I’m good with the one sushi, you don’t have to keep buying my love.” Bucky had to smile back. Though he hadn’t intended it, he felt that friendship solidify before his very eyes. He compiled a mental list.

  * **Bucky’s Eleven**


  1. Bucky (Frank Sinatra)
  2. Tony (the backer)
  3. Scott (the wingman)



“Then we’ll shoot tonight at my apartment, right after hours,” Bucky decided. “With that dog.”  
  
“With what equipment?” Scott asked. Bucky had his phone to his ear already and shushed him.

“Peter Parker! Barnes, upstairs. Hey, so, listen. Do you like dogs?”

“Do you have a dog up there? I’ll be up in ten minutes, don’t let it leave!” Peter had an incredibly young phone voice. Bucky wouldn’t normally ask him for anything but he was a requisite part of Bucky’s Eleven.

“Hold up, kiddo. Not right now, but I will. I need you to photograph a really great dog today for the sock spread.” Bucky winced at the groaning response on the other end. Scott gave him an oblivious thumbs up, encouraging from across the room.  
  
“I shot that two weeks ago, dude,” Peter responded, already a lazy whine in his voice.  
  
“I know,” Bucky said carefully, “and Tony loves it, we all love it, but Tony green-lit a great charity idea for dogs and we need just one more shot. Cutest little thing you’ve ever seen. It might stretch after hours, which I know isn’t ideal, but it’s for a good cause. And I’ll buy you whatever snacks you want.”

“I have been waiting my entire life to hear someone say that.” Peter laughed and Bucky stopped holding his breath. “What the hell else am I doing on a Monday night? You should have just said you were getting a dog, I would’ve taken pictures of it anyway!” Bucky shot out of his desk and pumped his fists in the air before sitting back down and composing himself.

“Great. Give me like--- three hours of your time to shoot in an apartment about ten minutes away. And then I need the digital files to get to Doreen for the twitter.”

“Do we have a deadline?”

“Tomorrow. It’s a tight situation, I know. I’ll call again in fifteen minutes, but I’m hanging up.”

  1. Peter Parker (the gadget guy)



Scott slipped back behind his desk, watching with quiet amusement as Bucky tried to manage his phone, his laptop, and his excitement at the same time. The elevator opened and Doreen practically fell out.

“I got your text about dogs! I’m down! I’m in!” she breathed heavily, scurrying to his side. Bucky handed her the photos of Hambone and she rifled through, her eyes wide and watery as a doe’s.

“Where were you?” Bucky asked.

“On the street out front two blocks away. I ran.”

“Okay, take a breather,” he laughed, realizing a sudden absurdity in the whole picture. He was doing this, and against all odds, other people were helping him make it happen. The whole room buzzed with light. “This morning you’re going to call the humane society for me. Do you know how to pitch?”

“I’ve heard you do it a couple of times. I could do it.” Bucky smiled. She did listen after all.

“The idea here is that we would like to cast a dog for a photo shoot tonight. It’s a very short turnaround. What you’re offering is free exposure on our print and digital media, which is worth its weight in gold. And we’ll have the dog back safe and sound, they can send a handler if they want, we’ll sign whatever safety waivers they’ve got and they’ll sign some image legal that I’ll forward to you, and you’ll pick the cutest dog they have. My suggestion is Hambone, but if Hambone has been adopted in the last fifteen minutes then it’s up to your discretion. Call first to set up an appointment, or whatever, just to get a contact, and then you go in person to make sure it goes alright. And then you take their dog.”

“This is simultaneously the most serious and most goofy assignment you’ve ever given me,” she gaped, taking notes. “Are you sure you want me to do this?” Bucky smiled, feeling suddenly paternal.

“You up for it?” He watched her carefully. Doreen nodded vigorously. Her eyes were focused and sharp, but the rest of her outwardly looked like she hit snooze one too many times, her cardigan’s buttons one off in alignment and her hair amped with fluff.

“I mean, absolutely,” she asserted. “I can do it. I will not leave that building without a dog strapped to my bike.”

  1. Doreen (the protege)



“Scott will take you in his car before the photo shoot,” Scott cut in. “Scott will pet some dogs for research reasons and leave work early to pet those dogs.”

“That is very kind of Scott,” Bucky chuckled. “Make the call. I have a thousand things to figure out this afternoon somehow, and none of it is as fun as this stuff,” he admitted with a grin.  
  
Doreen darted off down the hall. Bucky’s Eleven had five teammates and he was about to make it six, if Sam Wilson felt like being a superstar. He didn’t owe it to Bucky to be nice, but if luck continued to go his way, Bucky thought as he looked up the number, maybe he’d at least be civil. He swallowed hard and hoped.

* * *

Orders rang in all the time at the Birdhouse, and typically there was a fight to see whose hands were the most tied when deciding who would have to pick it up. Steve was arranging things in the bakery case and shrugged slyly. Sam rolled his eyes and grabbed the phone on the wall.   
  
“Birdhouse Cafe, how can I help you?” He said, shifting the receiver between his shoulder and neck. The Monday morning rush had died temporarily, but there would soon be another, the moms and nannies with strollers needing ice coffee with all kinds of weird shit in it for their trip to the park. 

“Hey, Sam! Hey. So, it’s Bucky...”

“Uh huh.” Sam felt his face turn to stone. Bucky coughed on the other end. Sam was glad he made him nervous.

“You’re not gonna like this, but I can make it worth your while.”

“I already don’t like it," Sam said honestly. "What’s up, Bucky?” He hit the name with enough punctuation to amplify it, and Steve heard, on cue. Sam smirked watching him hit his head on the top of the display.

“I need to borrow Steve for like, three hours. For work. I don’t know how long his shift is, but---.”

“Uh huh. You asking my permission?” Sam asked. Steve hopped over, suddenly animated.

“Is that Bucky? Lemme talk to him. C’mon!” Sam swatted him away.

“He’s negotiating with me. How come you need Steve? If you say for more Fight Club I’m gonna hang up yesterday.” Sam’s voice was dark but curious. Bucky could have easily called Steve directly; it's not like they weren't texting each other with stupid frequency. 

“Sam, I get the feeling you don’t trust me.” _Hit the nail on the head there, Jim,_ Sam thought with a heavy sigh. 

“Bucky, I like you fine. But yeah, trust you I do not.” Sam looked pointedly at Steve, who glared at him with the fire of a thousand suns, which Sam would never admit was his most favorite thing on this blessed, broken planet, tied, perhaps, with the way Peggy tapped her nose with a delicate forefinger when something was just right.

“And that’s fair,” Bucky said quickly. “That is fair. If I told you it was because I need him to be a model in a photo shoot with a dog for my magazine, would you believe me?”

“Sounds fake," Sam mused. Steve made a grab for the phone and he dodged just in time. "Do you know I had to hire two teenagers to fill his shoes last time you happened? Teenagers, man!”

“Sam, gimme the phone!” Steve threw his arms out wide and wild and Sam guarded the receiver like they were on the basketball court.

“I’m taking a to-go order!” Sam barked.

“You are not! That’s _Bucky_!” 

“And Bucky’s ordering some shit that you’re going to deliver for a couple of hours, now are you going to let me live or what?” Steve stood dumbly still, wanting to argue but failing to find a retort. Sam couldn't keep the smile out of his voice when he brought the phone back to his ear. “And when would you like your order of two dozen of our most unappetizing but suddenly very expensive cookies, Mr. Barnes?”   
  
“Five o’clock. Sharp. Please and thank you.”  
  
“Sounds fine. If you send him back in less than mint condition I’m gonna come for you, Barnes," he said, watching Steve happily serve a customer and thinking maybe that joy was worth these intolerable levels of weird, sometimes. 

“You’re an angel, Sam.”

“Uh huh, the avenging kind with the big sword made of fire.” 

“He’ll be back in no time, I promise. I just need his feet.” Sam's whole face screwed up involuntarily.

“I don’t need your kinky details, dude. This is already the weirdest way I’ve ever heard anybody get a date and you’re tying up the line.”

“I’ll text him the address. Thank you, Sam.”

“Uh huh.” Sam hung up and scribbled Bucky's "request" on the order pad. Steve was rinsing out the steamer cup.   
  
"What was that? He didn't want to talk to me?" he asked with a sincere frown. Sam sighed and retied his apron, tighter. "Well?" Steve badgered, and Sam just turned the music louder.

* * *

Bucky was grinning as he ended the call, and as if on cue, a new email from Sharon popped up above the twenty others he had to handle this morning.

> _If you want your intern to get credit you have to fill out her hours and send it through me or she won’t get paid for her time, either. It was due Friday. Just do it now. Don’t be a dick, she’s a sweet girl. Also I asked Tony if you were looking to hire her after her quarter’s up. You need to recommend her and she needs to formally apply. I could use her if you can’t :) -Shar_

Sharon managed to be cold and kind at the same time, which Bucky could only admire in this train wreck office. He sifted through a drawer to find Doreen’s paperwork, searching for the tell-tale university letterhead. The board meeting loomed. His phone buzzed on his desk.

 **Steve**  
What’s up???????  
Where am I delivering this weird cookie box?  
Why did you order spinach chocolate chip? Did u mean oatmeal?  
  
Bucky laughed out loud. Sam might not like him but he liked Sam’s style.  
  
**Bucky**  
_Sorry this is so sudden, I need a pro-bono foot model!_  
_2nite! For a photoshoot_  
  
**Steve**  
Weird  
Are my feet nice?

 **Bucky**  
_I have no idea!  
It’s with a dog though! _

**Steve**  
I would’ve said yes anyway but now I’m definitely in  
  
**Bucky**  
_Texting the address_

 **Steve**  
I’ll be there with bells on  
On my feet  
Which I really hope are nice

Bucky amended his mental list. Half-way there... 

  1. Sam (the reluctant accomplice)
  2. Steve (the Julia Roberts?)



Doreen had g-chatted a smiley from her work station and Bucky assumed it was going okay on her end. _Don’t be a dad, fill out her hours and let her get the work done_ . He scribbled absently through the required university paperwork and decided to walk it down to Sharon’s office on the way to the board meeting; he could check on Doreen on his way. He let himself gush about her on the page, being honest about how forgiving she was of a terrible boss (him,) resourceful and efficient, smart and cheery and full of integrity. All-around ideal hire. Bucky slammed the stapler on the sheets and packed up his troubles for the afternoon. The board meeting would be the longest in history with all this excitement waiting for him on the other end but he felt confident it was going to work. It had to work, because if it didn’t he was going to lose 98% of his faith in the universe. But it also had to work because all his best teammates were suddenly surrounding him with enthusiastic support, teammates he didn’t know he had yesterday. It was a nice feeling, and not one he had ever registered before. He bopped Doreen on the head with his papers as he passed the intern island.   
  
“Did you make the call?”  
  
“I did. I’m emailing them as much information as I can without overwhelming them, and I am looking through their catalogue of pups online as we speak,” Doreen gestured to her laptop, which was covered in stickers. Bucky leaned in to look.  
  
“Hambone still there? Jesus, D, you have like 30 open tabs,” he gaped. Doreen smiled triumphantly.  
  
“Most of them are dogs! And I’m not telling you which dog it will be, because the surprise will be excellent, and also I have not decided because this is the most fun part of the day so far,” she clicked through a few photos and Bucky laughed.  
  
“I’m recommending you to Sharon so you can get your course credit. Are you going to apply to work here?” Bucky asked pointedly. “You should do that. I can help you do that.” Doreen stopped and looked up at him.  
  
“Really?” Bucky suddenly realized that the time had gone so fast because he hadn’t been treating her nearly as well as she deserved. She looked up at him like she’d been waiting a thousand years to hear any praise. The way he felt, sometimes, before.  
  
“Yeah,” he hesitated. “You’re a superhero, Doreen. I’ve been really overlooking your talents. I’m sorry. But you’re going to nail this project. Get ready to totally fix our social media presence.” He held up a hand for a high five and she smacked it with a brutal enthusiasm. The rest of the day, he feared, punching the floor number with purpose, stood between him and the rest of his life. What if it went so well that Bucky got to do a philanthropy feature in every issue? What if this magazine actually got some positive cred? If it failed, it failed, and he would think of something else and fail a couple more times until he didn’t hate this place. He felt more like a fighter than any Monday morning in this very elevator had ever seen him, and that felt fucking great. He might start understanding the power of positive thinking that Clint was always talking about for his kiddos. He led them in silly chants every morning to wake them up and make them feel good, things like “good morning! Today is my favorite day!” and “it’s a good morning because I’m excited, smart, and ready!” If it’s good enough for a second grader, Clint said, it’s good enough for everybody. _I’m excited, smart, and ready_ , Bucky thought with a smile. _Fuck yeah._  
  
Bucky steamrolled through the hours, getting everything out of the way between him and Hambone, and finally found himself waving Scott and Doreen off as they left for the Humane Society. Doreen promised success; she’d called a couple of times to confirm and made friends with a few volunteers. Bucky couldn’t imagine any reason why they wouldn’t let them borrow a dog for a little while, but then again, he didn’t know shit about shelters, dogs, or any legalities thereof. He wasn’t a praying man, but he sent a little memo to the Universe. _It would be amazing if somehow this worked in his favor, just in case you wanted to do something amazing, Universe._

Outside the office, Bucky called Peter. He called Tony. He called Doreen. And he got on his bike.

“Do your thing, Universe,” he mumbled. “You owe me.”

But he should have called Nat.

* * *

Clint had a very normal day at school. Only one child did something gross (vomit, main hall, carpet) and two children said something mean (“you look a hundred years old, Mr. Barton,” and “snakes are not cute at all they are the ugliest animal on our planet,” which wasn’t so much mean to him specifically but in general and totally uncalled for,) all three instances of which he texted to Natasha over the course of the afternoon to brighten her mood. She worked from home that day, only halfheartedly, paperwork spread over the table in a blizzard, and was still poring over text as when Clint came home from school and collapsed on the sofa for a nap around 4. She wasn’t expecting any guests, and frowned when someone buzzed from the front lobby just as she was calling it an exhausting day at 5 sharp.

“Yes?” She hoped it was the deposition paperwork that was supposed to arrive hours ago via courier. It was not.

“Um. Is this--- is Bucky there?” a man’s voice crackled over the intercom and Natasha couldn’t recognize it.

“Not right now,” she responded simply. She could hear traffic while the man stammered.

“He--- he’s not? Are you--- uh. I’m Steve Rogers, he told me to meet him here. At this address. At five.” Nat’s eyes lit up. She didn’t even think to ask the obvious question.

“Right! Steve Rogers,” she repeated, her voice twisting with a smile. “I’m gonna buzz you right up, Steve Rogers.” She hit the button almost too enthusiastically. Her workday had just gone from a weak 3 to a strong 9. Steve Rogers, Barista Boyfriend, in her own apartment. Trapped. She had only a minute or so before the elevator would bring him, so she called Bucky for a little lighthearted gloating.

“Nat?” He responded aggressively. “Sorry, thought you were my boss. What’s up?”

“Are you making dinner tonight?” She asked duplicitously. Bucky was out of breath.

“No, I have a huge project today. I’m locking up the bike, sorry, hold on a sec--- Why would--- oh _no_.” Nat could hear the light bulb moment and started putting her paperwork away. “Are you at the apartment? I forgot you were--- I offered to have a photo shoot there tonight, I’m so sorry,” he panicked. “Did--- did the dog show up? Is Steve there?”

“In a minute. Buzzed him up.”

“I’m running late, I just have to call my intern again and I'll be up. Don’t--- oh no.” Natasha could imagine him scrambling and it delighted her. “I’ll be there in two minutes. Please don’t be--- Nat. Just don’t. Please don't.”

“You have nothing to worry about!” She chimed like a sparrow. “Clint’s snoozing, so we’re going to have snacks and talk. Just us chickens.” There was a knock at the door. “That's him. Gotta go play hostess.”

“Nat---” She hung up on him. 

  1. Natasha (oh no, oh god, shit, goddamn it)
  2. Clint (harmless if sleeping)



Natasha opened the front door. Steve stood helplessly in the frame, a paper bag of baked goods in one hand, bemusedly observing the woman and the room beyond.  
  
“Do I--- is this the right place?”

“It certainly is,” Nat beamed. He matched her imagination’s conjuring almost perfectly, though the tattoos were slightly different than his description had her believe. “Steve Rogers?”

“That’s me.” Steve shifted uneasily. “Bucky’s late?”

“Just down the street,” she replied, smiling a bit more softly now so as not to look too serpentine. “Come right in. Can I get you a drink?”

“Thanks, no." Steve looked around the apartment, his eyes falling on certain details: magnetic poetry on the fridge, rainbow plastic Ikea cups in the sink next to very delicate teacups, a Costco-sized box of Goldfish crackers. "This is kind of exactly what I imagined this place to look like,” he said fondly. “Is this an antique?” He asked, knocking on the wooden dining room table.

“I bet you could build a better one, maybe even out of bunnies,” she said and cocked her head sideways. Steve suddenly had a better idea of how this interaction was going to go. “Did you bring us some carrot muffins?”

“No,” Steve returned the smile and handed her the paper sack of cookies. “Figured you’d be sick of those by now.”

“Thoughtful!” Natasha accepted and took one out. “I’m Natasha, by the way. The roommate. You’re the boyfriend that hit him?” Steve seized up for a moment, just a flash of defense, and swallowed dry. She wouldn’t break her gaze.

“Oh. Well. I mean---” he stumbled over his words and Natasha swore she’d read this one before, because his lies looked like a system malfunction on his face and body language. Natasha had to hand it to him; he was trying hard. Like, mill worker hard. Construction worker in the sun hard. Suddenly it occurred to her why it was so easy for Bucky to do this; the guy had some kind of pulse that invited fantasy. She couldn't help but quirk a smile now, watching him flounder. She liked him.  _Oh, Bucky's in trouble._ “I’m The Boyfriend, I guess, but, I’m not--- I’m not his, boyfriend. At some point it--- but we’re not anything official, or---” They were standing like this in kitchen in face-off, Steve cornered like prey and rambling, when the front door opened and Bucky scrambled through in a huff.

“Just in time,” Natasha smiled innocently turning from Steve, acknowledging Bucky’s panic with eyes that promised him only a hard time for the rest of his days. “Are you two getting to work right away or should I order us four pals a pizza?" Bucky was about to collapse in a bouquet of apologies when the intercom buzzed, heaven sent. He slammed the receiving button.

"Who is it?"

"All of your best friends," the speaker droned, "and Hambone. You just blew right past my car on the street, dude. What’re you, The Flash?"

  1. Hambone (the inside man)



"Hambone?!" Steve lit up, the Fourth of July and Christmas all at once in his bright eyes. "You didn't!" Bucky could only flash him a slapdash grin before buzzing them up, beckoning Steve to follow, and they dashed out to the elevators without once looking back at Natasha, left alone in the kitchen, chewing blankly on her cookie.

"Got him a dog on the second date," she muttered to herself. "Nothing official, my ass."

* * *

“I imagine you’re going to explain all of this in greater detail after I have thoroughly showered that dog with affection and respect,” Steve said as the two of them watched the numbers on the elevator slowly count up to Bucky’s floor. Bucky bounced on the balls of his feet.  
  
“We’re getting me a job worth working. And we only get one shot.”  
  
“Mom’s spaghetti and everything, huh? Don’t worry, Alexander, we won’t throw it away.” Steve grinned. Bucky threw him a sideways glance and laughed anyway. The doors opened, and a circus waited for them. Doreen held Hambone, larger than life and so very excited to be out and loved, on a close cloth leash and he all but leapt for joy just to be alive and riding an elevator, and Doreen was laughing infectiously as he dragged her out. Scott and Peter carried a tangle of camera cases and a lighting tree between them, chuckling at their own exhaustion as they passed some off to Steve. The color drained from Bucky’s face when he recognized the fourth passenger at the back, arms tight across his chest in an outright refusal of their chaotic display.  
  
“I came to get my things,” he said. “Didn’t know we were having a party.”

  1. Brock (demolitions expert.)



 

 

 


	9. Mosaic Timeline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The best laid plans of mice and writers often go awry. Like, super awry.

Bucky was breathing. He assumed but couldn’t be certain. _  
_ _  
_ _An instant can change everything; that’s simply the nature of impact. One action leads to another. Often, the previous movement is already gone from memory, but the muscles respond. Already what used to be home, what used to be companions, what used to be taken for granted is changing. That world ended. A new one begins, one moves on. Adapts. Grows. We were all smaller, once._  
  
“Brock?” Bucky heard his own voice sink into a swollen and pulsing silence. Around him bodies moved in broken, lagging pictures, and he couldn’t hear any one voice above the foggy quiet. “What are you doing here?” He asked and the room didn’t answer. Brock stood at the end of a falling hallway, his burning eyes closer than his body and he was pulling the oxygen from Bucky’s lungs one thread at a time. Bucky felt it unraveling. Something brushed against his back and through him entirely.  
  
_Small spaces can really make a guy nervous. Some just can’t handle it. Imprisonment. It’s different for everyone. It can turn anybody mean. I get that, I’ve been there. Elevators, cages, relationships. It’s all one. But it can’t define you. You know?_  
  
“What’s happening?” Bucky asked from an inside place, somewhere. Brock was moving in, closer, and he took every single day since Bucky had burned the bridge, since Bucky had recovered from the fire, and he pulled each stitch at the seam and sinew. Brock like a hurricane ripped the trees and the homes from the hurting earth. He tore Steve from Bucky’s hands, crushed him like a paper crane. The hallway fell away from his feet and in the instant all Bucky could focus on were his hands, his hands just like Brock’s. They flexed, glitched, could reach out and cradle his face so soft and sweet but strike and scorn, he thought it was over but Brock still held the leash---  
  
_You’re dissociating, Yasha._ _  
_ _  
_ The leash. Bucky looked down. Hambone in perfect clarity stared back, addressing him somewhere between. His voice was calm and low. For a dog.  
  
“What?” Bucky asked him. He hadn’t been called---  
  
_You’re dissociating. I get that. Trying to be somewhere else right now. Kind of a neat trick. But I think you need to come back. You need to help him. Hey. Yasha. Remember that, okay? James!_ _  
_ _  
_ _“_ What? Remember what? _”_ _  
_

“James! Apartment. Now.” Natasha’s voice cut through and the room returned. His lungs lurched back to place. Bucky blinked. Steve was holding him, and Brock was gone. Hambone looked on. He shut the door behind them, unsteady. Something happened but he wasn’t there to see it. His eyes fell on Doreen, who couldn’t stop apologizing, and one small piece clicked into place. Brock was gone.

* * *

Doreen would sooner throw a punch than a pity party, her mother had always said, and she never shied from a challenge. Heartbroken she couldn’t get the internship at National Geographic she dreamed about night and day, Doreen Green had gone to her guidance counselor, who claimed to have gotten her the next best thing. 

“You’re a tough girl. And you like animals, right? Men are animals.” The insufferable woman had an axe to grind that was dulled to powder. “See if you can’t turn this magazine around.” So Doreen had fully expected some 1960’s nightmare, a straight-up Mad Men office. She was relieved to see it was a lot of nerds shirking deadlines to play Mario Kart in the break room, a few very dedicated and tired writers, and her boss. James Barnes worried her at first, in a productive way, but in spite of his reputation and demeanor, like most humans he was just a little broken and trying his best. He lost himself in thought all the time, forgot to eat, sometimes even walked around the office with one pant leg totally rolled up like he had no idea how adults behaved. But he was sharp and thoughtful, and whiplash quick to shut down any nonsense. One of the guys in IT cornered her in the kitchen one day and made a truly disgusting innuendo about k-cups and, just as Doreen was beginning to read him his rights, Bucky was there like a storm cloud and that kid never showed up on their floor again. In turn, she often secretly solved small problems for him before they even crossed his desk. She supposed they took care of each other. In the non-professional bubble of her mind, she called him a friend.  
  
It just about chuffed her out of her mind that he would share this great project with her. There was nothing she wanted more in the world than to see him get the credit he deserved. She admired him for seeing things through, and suddenly here he was, recommending her for new projects and a shot at a permanent position. She’d held out hope that she might find a way to show him how fiercely she would fight for him, especially if she could make this media update work in his favor. After all, she hadn’t been taking coding classes on the sly for nothing.  
  
All that having been said, she couldn’t figure out how exactly that became a trip the immediate care center with his roommate’s boyfriend and a giant ice pack, but it didn’t _not_ make sense.  
  
“When’s your birthday?” The guy asked. Doreen frowned.  
  
“These are getting personal,” she replied. “You gonna get me a present if I tell you?” The young man sighed.  
  
“You can’t hold a pen, buddy, otherwise I’d let you write it yourself.”  
  
“You really are a teacher, I can tell,” she said, nodding. He shrugged. Clint had hauled his sorry accident-prone ass to this little satellite care center plenty of times; he knew the staff by name. It was a slow evening for them, apparently. Leaning against the counter was a thoroughly scraped delivery guy who looked like he got doored on his bike and an older gentleman reading a copy of Oprah magazine sat across the way with a heating pad around his neck. They’d turn Doreen around in less than an hour, he supposed. Efficient folks. He probably put their kids through college, for all the times they patched him up.  
  
“I’ve spent my fair share of mornings shuttling kiddos to the nurse’s office. Slim chance you busted your knuckle.”  
  
“You think so?” She asked with a grin. “On his face?”  
  
“On his face,” he repeated. He was smiling, too. “How about January? You look like a Capricorn.” Doreen considered the word.  
  
“I feel like I should be insulted? Is a Capricorn very smart and funny and attractive?”  
  
“Capricorn is a ram, I think,” he said. He always wanted to be the crab. He never remembered his own, because he was too busy thinking about how he wanted to be the crab.  
  
“Well then I’m definitely not insulted and in fact I’m very proud.” Clint continued to dictate questions and she told him the answers, fishing out an insurance card from her purse. Scott was circling the block looking for parking. She felt over-doted upon but decided to let it roll over her; it was that kind of evening, and she’d already picked a battle (and, she liked to think, won it.) Clint seemed to have become her new friend immediately, though he still hadn’t shaken that “woke up like this” air. They struck quite a pair: she in her favorite peter pan collar dinosaur dress and brown sweater, he having rolled out of bed and straight into the waiting room in sweats and a threadbare t-shirt. He fiddled with his hearing aides now and then; she wondered if he was tuning her in or out.  
  
“Have you ever hit anybody before?” She asked him. He nodded.  
  
“Gotten in some choice scrapes in my time. Before I became a teacher, mind,” he added. Doreen poked idly at the purple bump, which was throbbing under the ice pack the red-head had made her. _Natasha_. She was very cool. Doreen made a note to ask about her later, that excellent cool lady.  
  
“This has never happened before. I’ve hit things. I don’t think I did it wrong. Did I do it wrong?” She asked. It felt like she did it wrong.  
  
“No, dude. Did you see him?” Clint was laughing. “No, you did it just right. No surprise you’re Bucky’s protege, though. That was--- I mean, I’m proud of you, but we can both say that might have been an objectively bad scene.” Doreen nodded. He copied information off her card, and she watched him. His handwriting was careful and terrible.  
  
“Think I’m gonna get fired?”  
  
“Think you’re gonna get a pain prescription and a stern talking-to from the doc, and you’re going to hate typing for the next couple weeks while bruises heal, and no, I don’t think you’re gonna get fired,” Clint said honestly. “Especially if you broke his nose. Then I’ll send you an edible arrangement.”  
  
“At least I’ve got that going for me. Maybe a basket with the walnuts and M &Ms or---”  
  
“You don’t know how bad everybody in that building wanted to hit him.” Clint cut her off and put the pen down, his eyes closed. “That one’s not a good guy. You may have noticed.”  
  
“I’d never heard so many horrible words at once,” Doreen huffed through a laugh. “Usually I’m all for civilized communication in a tight spot but wow, he was awful.” Her phone buzzed several times in a row as Peter texted her a series of photos. “I’m so bummed to miss this photo shoot. Looks like Bucky’s having a time with that dog. God, I like that dog.” Clint took the clipboard up to the receptionist, tennis shoes squeaking through shuffles on the linoleum as he went.  
  
“Bucky would have missed this photo shoot if it weren’t for you,” he said. A beautiful nurse took Doreen’s file right away and met Clint with a weary glare. "Nice to see you too, Claire."  
  
“Miss Green!" She breezed right past him. "Want to tell me what happened to your hand?”  
  
“A guy in the elevator said something mean about my boss who is definitely not my boyfriend,” she said. Clint snorted. The nurse raised her eyebrows and Clint held up his hands.  
  
“Don’t look at me. I just woke up.”  
  
“I can tell,” she sighed. "Let's have a look at you, Miss Green."   
  
Doreen handed her phone to Clint so he could look through the pictures while she went into the examination room. He had to leave the building, laughing as hard as he was, when he recognized Natasha’s feet. And, for Steve, pity rather than envy washed over Clint in warm, sunny waves. He snorted, laughing. _Chapter 15: Barista Boyfriend Shoots Softcore Fetish Porn with The Writer’s Furious Roommate after Tag-Teaming The Ex_ , he thought. _What a niche adventure._

* * *

Steve hadn’t known what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t this. Bucky had been a wall of white panic facing the stranger from the elevator, a pale far beyond any normal healthy reaction to an ex resurfacing, Steve felt. His coworkers had pushed obliviously past them both into the apartment and began setting up the equipment, chittering away. And Doreen stood oddly, perfectly between the two of them and Brock, and she glanced comically from man to man.  
  
“You know this guy, Bucky?” She'd asked, putting the leash in his hand. Brock huffed.  
  
“Probably still dreams about it every night, kid. Who’re you?”  
  
“His girl Friday,” she replied, defensive. Brock didn’t get it, of course, and that strike lit the whole book of matches.  
  
“His _girl_ , huh?” He looked directly at Bucky, venom dripping to the hallway carpet. “She the one holding you when you cry your eyes out now? She the one _making you scream?_ ” Doreen screwed up her face.  
  
“Uhh, that’s _not what that---_ ”  
  
“Guess you wanted to be in control of something for once, that it, princess? Some witless young pussy and you can feel like you got a grip. An even softer bitch than you are, huh, little ginger fucktoy?” Steve put a hand on Bucky’s back but he was stone still. Steve had no way of telling if Brock was drunk or mad or if this is just how he normally behaved, and an instinctive defense kicked in. Brock took a step forward, never dropping his gaze from Bucky’s. “This is exactly the kind of interaction you imagined, isn’t it, you sick fuck? Daddy’s home and I take you back over my shoulder? Humiliate you in front of your side chick?”  
  
“Brock---” Natasha appeared in the doorway with a warning tone but it was Doreen who threw all her force behind one hand and slammed it into Brock’s mouth before anybody could get another word in edgewise.  
  
The hallway froze in an odd tableau. Nat’s silhouette hung still in the doorway to the apartment, Clint pawing sleep from his eyes helplessly behind her.  
  
“Uhh,” he mumbled. “What’s going on?” Steve instinctively lunged forward in front of Doreen, should Brock retaliate and go for the kid, and repeatedly slammed the elevator button. To Bucky it looked slow and deliberate, time weaving in careful bubbles slower than reality. He only barely felt Natasha pull him aside as she pushed past, moving the entire situation and its participants like chess pieces. Brock had hit the back of his head on the wall harder than Doreen had hit his face, losing his balance and throwing his gravity suddenly backwards through his skull into a light fixture, and he blinked away colored spots as Nat more than graciously directed him into the opening elevator.  
  
“If I see you again you can expect a restraining order,” she said, all tired fast elegance. “Mr. Barnes is represented by Romanov  & Rosenthal. We’ll be in touch.” Brock was shaking off a daze as he dabbed at the blood stemming from his nose as the elevator doors closed. He had the fine sense to take a hint, and the elevator descended. Bucky stared after him, parsing. He had a thousand things he wanted to say, would have said. It happened without him. Doreen held her own hand, wincing.  
  
“He definitely had an unnaturally hard face, right? Like that would hurt for anybody to hit him, right?” Tears unwillingly welled in her eyes and Natasha shuttled her into the apartment for ice. Bucky stood rooted, and Steve looked at him.  
  
“That was your ex,” he said uselessly. Bucky nodded. Color rose to Steve’s cheeks as he realized all the hurt and sharp, shining edges exposed in Bucky in the harsh light of Brock and he thanked God that the girl had gotten to him first, because something animalistic in him ripped open and he swore he might not have been able to stop himself from breaking that man open like a Kinder egg. Instead, he put his arms around Bucky and finally the freeze fell. Steve held him whole, the relative quiet of far off apartment arguing (who would take Doreen to Urgent Care, where the lights should be placed, whether Hambone looked more beagle or german shepherd or maybe cattle dog---) and their breathing synced to a calm. Steve knew this wasn’t part of their plan to be friends, art buddies, whatever they were calling it, but he just couldn’t stop holding him.  
  
“Hey. James. Inside. Now.” Natasha was terse, awake for everyone. It all snapped back into clarity. Bucky tried to piece together what had happened from what he could see. His eyes fell on Doreen.  
  
“Oh my god.” He turned to Steve, who wanted desperately to say something right but had too many questions of his own, his face a slurry of worry and fear. Bucky scraped through the memory where the last five minutes should have been. The file was corrupt, useless and unreadable. He lost that time. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. Sorry, team. I don’t quite understand---” He reached down to free Hambone from the leash. Nat quirked an eyebrow as he bounded around, greeting each human in turn. She met Bucky’s stare and asked non-verbally whether or not everything was okay. He shook his head dismissively and focused elsewhere; he couldn't bear to focus on himself just then. “Jesus, Doreen---”  
  
“Barnes, we’re doing this in your bedroom, right?” Scott entered at precisely the wrong moment and immediately went into paternal overdrive. “It’s been like five minutes! What happened?!”  
  
“The guy in the elevator with us was a secret jerk,” Doreen sniffed. Tears streaked her face but she wasn’t actively crying. “He called me some horrible things and I hit his face with my hand and my hand did not hold up its end of the bargain. Not very professional. I’m sorry,” she said, more to Bucky than to anyone else, but it was Steve that answered.  
  
“If you hadn’t, I had dibs.”  
  
“It would be great if, _in general_ , there were a lot less use of force to solve problems in this family,” Natasha said, passively to Steve but pointedly at Bucky, who looked at the kitchen floor, still sporting the shadow of a shiner from what felt like years ago by Steve’s hand. “Clint is taking her to the immediate care center. He’s been there before.” It was a command more than a request, and Clint nodded.  
  
“Sure have.”  
  
“I’m supposed to help with this shoot,” Doreen insisted. “This is huge!”  
  
“You’ve helped so much,” Bucky sighed, a hand on her shoulder. “Really. That--- I should have handled that myself. This is on me.” His eyebrows knit and quivered and Steve felt some new rage bubbling in pricks on his neck, to hear Bucky shoulder blame for the guy’s mere existence. He stuffed it away, in a corner. That was a discussion for later. “Thank you. You have to get your hand checked out if it’s swelling up, that’s--- the reasonable thing to do. And Tony will fire us all if you sue. You’ll be back and fighting fit in no time.”  
  
“Let’s watch our word choice, maybe,” Nat said, pushing a piece of the girl’s hair behind her ear sweetly. Doreen worried she had cartoon hearts in her eyes.  
  
“I won’t sue. I promise.”  
  
“I’ll drive,” Scott cut in. “Not that--- you can’t.” Clint shrugged.  
  
“No fighting, dads, we can all go to the emergency room,” Doreen grumbled, hopping off the counter. She looked at Nat, holding her wounded paw. “Can I bend it?”  
  
“I don’t know, can you?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Then don’t.” Hambone was trotting around the kitchen and sat at Steve’s feet, who beamed like he’d been chosen by God. Scott looked over at the mutt, adoring.  
  
“My son,” he said, his dog-voice indistinguishable from his normal tone, “you take pretty pictures and daddy’ll be back soon.”  
  
“I wouldn’t get too attached to him, Lang,” Bucky said, noting the extension cords crossing from the living room into his bedroom for lighting trees. “You still gotta return him.”  
  
“To my house I do, yeah. Lot less paperwork since I---” Steve’s eyes widened.  
  
“ _You adopted him?_ ” He kneeled to hold that floppy face in his hands, heart a little more broken than moments before.  
  
“I tried to talk him out of it, but he also bought a huge bag of kibble,” Doreen admitted, but the three of them were out the door before Steve could even whine about it.  
  
“I’ll visit you all the time,” Steve said softly to the dog. “That guy’s gonna be my new best friend, don’t you worry. You have enough love in your heart for all of us.”  
  
“Jesus Christ,” Natasha rolled her eyes. Peter was already digging through the pantry unsolicited, and Bucky was thinking too hard again, out of focus. “Bucky, you’d better get this show on the road.” He quickly swallowed the whole of the moment like medicine.  
  
“Yup.” He blinked, twice, three times, feeling the floor for certain through his shoes. Brock was gone. “Yes. We’re going to do the whole thing exactly like that didn’t just happen for a few hours and then when it’s done we’ll talk about it and everybody gets pizza and dog therapy. Okay? Good plan, team?” He was looking at Steve with some fading resolution, and Steve remembered what he said about his one shot.  
  
“Yeah. That’s how it’s going to go,” he promised. “Tell me what to do and where to stand! Brought my feet and everything.” The corner of Bucky’s mouth managed a gentle curl. The list of questions grew longer, pages and pages into chapters, for Steve, but for now, the most pressing was whether or not he had to keep his pants on, and he wondered if it was too late, or too stressful to ask.  
  
“Is she the other model?” Peter asked between mouthfuls of Goldfish crackers. Natasha blinked.  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“For the shoot. We need two humans and a pup. I assume Golden Boy here,” he gestured to Steve, “is part of it.”  
  
“Better be talking about the dog,” Steve said in a baby voice for Hambone’s benefit. Bucky erased the white board on the refrigerator and sketched the idea in his head that Tony had green-lit.  
  
“Low angle like this, at the foot of the bed. Just feet, implicating some canoodling, whatever, and Hambone with one of the brand socks in his mouth.” He tapped the board emphatically.  
  
“Cute,” Natasha said. “Two pairs of feet, huh?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“And you were going to ask me if my feet were busy?” She asked pointedly. Bucky worried his lip. It hadn’t occurred to him, if he was honest. In his head, he was the other model in some kind of messed up fantasy where he got to lay next Steve Rogers professionally and it didn't count. He hadn’t addressed that outside the safety of his imagination and God help him, all he could see now in his mind was static and Brock where he hadn’t been before. He couldn’t shake him out. Steve looked down at his sneakers.  
  
“You know, I’m really starting to worry that my feet might not be pretty,” he said offhandedly. Natasha continued to stare at Bucky.  
  
“James?” She called. He shifted. The signals were firing so slowly.  
  
“Will you be a foot model for a little while?” His voice was very small.  
  
“Dishes and trash for a whole month,” she demanded. “Yes or no?” Bucky swallowed and nodded. Absently Natasha predicted she would have a lot to tell Clint when he came back. For the time being, she was climbing into Bucky's bed with Barista Boyfriend and by God, she was going to make the most of it. "It'll be worth it," she promised duplicitously. "You'll get a raise and I'm about to make a very close new friend."

* * *

Hambone had never felt this good in his entire life, probably. He couldn't remember a good deal of it, but this was the happiest he could remember being right now in this moment exactly. The whole place was full of smells, totally new ones. There were moments of another dog here and there and Hambone was intent on finding him, but the scent died when they all went in the smaller room. Two of them (Coffee & Sweet and Sharp & Violets, by their smells,) were on the bed and all he wanted was to join that cuddle puddle for real but Nerves & Ink kept begging him to play some kind of game with this very weak toy and it would be rude if he didn't play a game when someone asked him to play a game after all games were fun and he liked games and Nerves & Ink just needed as many kisses as possible in order to tell him that he won the game because he seemed very intent on whatever game it was he was trying to ask Hambone to play right now!! Hambone was also sure there were snacks in that boy's pocket but the boy was causing a lot of bright flashes to happen and Hambone was not about to go after those snacks if those flashes were going to keep it up. Coffee & Sweet and Sharp & Violets were wrestling, it looked like, and that seemed very fun, but Nerves & Ink spoke so sweet and calm that finally Hambone sat very still to soak in the kindness of his voice. And Hambone must have done that very well because very suddenly he was A Good Boy, a Very Good Boy, and Hambone got lots of pets. It was a great day. He was sure he wouldn't have to go back to his cage now. Hambone was a very good boy, after all. 

* * *

Peter seemed better than pleased, looking through the files on his camera. “Okay. I already got the shot I think we’re gonna run. You guys are good sports but jesus, that dog steals every photo.” Peter took out his phone and snapped a picture of the camera’s digital screen. “I’ll send some outtakes to Dor to cheer her up.” Bucky grimaced, freshly reminded.  
  
“That’s kind of you. Send her the actual files when you can, so she can figure out a social media plan.” Peter nodded and tapped away at his phone.  
  
“I’m so glad we knew you before you got famous,” Natasha sighed. She had rolled off of Steve and was lying with her arms hooked behind her on the headboard. “I believe you promised us pizza.”  
  
“How about I get the pizza and you guys talk shop?” Steve all but jumped out of the bed. “I can just run across the street. Fifteen minutes.” He darted to the kitchen for his shoes before anyone could really protest. Hambone attempted to lunge after him but got tangled in Bucky, sitting cross-legged on the floor, who wrestled him to the ground and lavished him in attention.  
  
“Hey, get one with pineapple!” Peter called after Steve. “What’s up with Golden Boy?” Natasha tugged the comforter across the bed, making it neater than she found it.  
  
“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” she said. “Pineapple? _Really_.”  
  
“It’s got a lot of nuance!" Peter defended. "Whatever, you don’t have to eat it.” Natasha sat on the floor next to Bucky to boop Hambone on the nose. Hambone looked baffled and well-pleased.  
  
“One of us just spooned a stranger, I am going to eat whatever I want, kid.”  
  
“Pineapple, got it.” Steve was slipping on his shoes when he noticed Bucky’s phone on the kitchen counter alight with texts.  
  
**Unknown Number**  
I deserved That  
  
**Unknown Number**  
Come downstairs I’ll wait  
  
**Unknown Number**  
Come talk to me Damn it I’m sorry  
  
Steve flipped it over to face the cool granite. When he passed Brock Rumlow, a brooding slump on the bench just beyond the front door, he was shocked to feel a far off scrap of pity where he was sure only wrath ought to be. There sat the man who didn’t deserve James Barnes. He’d already suffered the greatest loss Steve could imagine. Steve passed without acknowledging the bench, feeling he dragged behind him a thick and ugly trail of his own bitter vitriol and tangled understanding of the man he’d only finally seen in the flesh and immediately wished dead. Waiting for pizzas he chose arbitrarily, he watched highlights from last night’s game on an overhead TV without really taking them in. He pulled out his phone, thinking he might text Bucky, let there be one text waiting for him that wasn’t from a specter. He didn’t have a right to be mad, he didn’t have a right to feel protective or heartbroken or jealous, he told himself. He was an outsider, and those emotions weren’t his to feel.  
  
**Steve**  
This isn’t how I thought it would be  
  
**Sam**  
_Never is, man_  
_Let it be however it is_  
  
**Steve**  
How are you so wise  
  
**Sam**  
_All the Bob Ross painting time your sorry ass makes me watch_  
_Every tree needs a friend, Steve_  
_can’t always be an almighty mountain, am i right mountainman?_  
  
**Steve**  
Ok sassmaster  
I’ll be home late  
  
**Sam**  
_I figured_  
  
On the way back to the apartment, Steve intercepted the Away Team, newly bandaged and slightly more medicated than before. They headed upstairs: Scott to retrieve his dog, Doreen to love on that dog, and Clint to love on that pizza. As the evening wore on, one by one the members of Bucky’s Eleven fell away, leaving behind empty pizza boxes, echoes of laughter and stories told while unlikely friendships bloomed, and Steve Rogers snoozing on the couch, seated upright and head fully dropped backward like a flower in heavy rain. Per the agreement, Bucky took responsibility for dishes, though Clint obliviously offered to take over before Nat shuttled him away. She leaned in her doorway to watch. Bucky gathered the boxes from the coffee table, careful not to nudge the sweet sleeping heap.  
  
“That was a roller coaster, huh,” she said levelly. Bucky grunted.  
  
“Here's hoping Peter can send through the files to layouts and Dor can queue up a solid social media week." He dropped the boxes next to the trash can. "Thank you for barreling through as usual. You really came through for me.”  
  
“Everyone did, Barnes. Against all odds you can’t count the people who love you on two hands.” He caught on ‘love’ and snapped to meet her stare. She nodded at Steve. “Just saying.”  
  
“As of yesterday,” Bucky pointed out, “you were not on board that express train of bad timing at all. He that good at spooning? Or did he tell you all my secrets in bed?” As usual, Nat revealed little to nothing.  
  
“Choo-choo,” she said.  
  
“Easier said than done,” he sighed, sitting on the couch. The apartment was quiet for a moment, still but for the rise and fall of Steve.  
  
“You got this?” Natasha asked, doubly. Bucky nodded, and she disappeared. Clint had bunched all her pillows in the middle of the bed like a nest, reading through a paperback mystery. "Any good?" She asked him, curling over his shoulder.   
  
"They don't give androids enough credit, you know?" He said absently. "AI rights are going to be a really big issue in the next twenty years, don't you think?" Natasha nodded. They'd had this conversation before.  
  
"I want you to upload my consciousness to the cloud the first opportunity you get."  
  
"Sure, babe." He smiled. He suddenly shut the book. "Did Bucky make you snuggle up with his boyfriend for him while I was gone?" Natasha dropped her head into a nuzzle.  
  
"No. But Steve Rogers did enjoy the privilege of being spooned by me as a gesture of goodwill."  
  
"Ever the altruist," he laughed. "One of my top five favorite gestures you make, for the record," he stretched and purred into her embrace and she smiled.  
  
"Is this you asking me for dirty details?"  
  
"Yes," he hissed. "No stone unturned. Was he good?"  
  
"Depends on your definition. I wish you'd been there," she laughed. " _God_."

* * *

Natasha painted the scene for Clint: the four of them in stand-off, the dog caught haplessly between, and the photographer that she grew to despise just egging things in ridiculous directions. She'd only just convinced Bucky to offer her a month of dishes in exchange, and the kid was utterly unaware of the emotional gravity in the room.  
  
“Tick tock, Barnes,” Peter had said through a smile, enjoying this tension he clearly misunderstood. “Hey,” the kid brightened. “You know, we could do the obvious male-female but I bet if we took a few shots of two obviously male sets of feet--- Tony might not notice and we could accidentally do something controversial and cool.”  
  
“Why not?” Natasha said, quirking an eyebrow and reading the red in Bucky’s cheeks like her native language. “Your feet busy, James?”  
  
“Hell, why not all _three_?” Peter said through a laugh, wiping his glasses on his shirt. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Not that kind of a shoot today, I promise.”  
  
“ _Today_?” Steve asked. “You’ve done that kind of a shoot before?” Natasha sighed heavily.  
  
“Nothing would surprise you about this magazine, Golden Boy, no mountain lodges here,” she said. Peter seemed pleased his nickname had stuck.  
  
“Let’s--- let’s see how much time we have.” Bucky tensed. Steve watched him warily.  
  
“What should I do?” He asked, addressing the room and Bucky at the same time. Bucky blinked, looking between him, Natasha’s inscrutable smile, Peter’s impatience, and precious, oblivious Hambone. The big dance number was in full swing, though the team had dwindled. Bucky tried to remember some team-building exercises from those dopey development retreats that Stark’s girlfriend ran; the only effective thing that came to mind were games that leveled the playing field between ranked positions. He considered it.  
  
“Everybody’s shoes off. Yours too, Parker. We’re officially a barefoot set, nobody feels weird about it at the count of three. We’re in it together.”  
  
“Is this how you create a safe space for full-frontal, too?” Natasha asked, already in her bare feet, it being her apartment and what was supposed to be a relaxing evening that had just turned into a small-scale circus. She’d been in yoga pants since Clint came home and was suddenly grateful. Peter shrugged, slipping off his kicks and stepping over the extension cords he'd laid at the door to Bucky's room.  
  
“Never tried it, but I guess it would really change the vibe of the room.” He turned on Bucky’s clock radio and some tinny treble filled the bedroom with poppy riffs.  
  
“Depends on the dicks, I reckon,” Natasha said with a shrug, walking past him as Steve shoved his socks into his shoes and involuntarily blushed. She shimmied under Bucky’s covers. “Rogers, you want to be on top or bottom?”  
  
“You guys--- I don't think you need to---” Peter tried to remember Bucky's composition but was not directing the bodies in question. Natasha was already rearranging the bed to her liking.  
  
“Umm,” Steve blinked furiously, considering. “Whatever would make you more comfortable, I guess. It’ll only be a few minutes anyway, right?”  
  
“It takes a real man to admit that up front,” she said, patting the space next to her on the bed. “I’ll top.” Bucky wanted to worry but Hambone hopped anxiously at his side, his wet nose prodding at Bucky’s hands begging for some kind of attention. Steve sat on the bed and rolled his pant legs up to the calf before shimmying down to get his head on the pillow, humming approval.  
  
“Comfy.”  
  
“Boxspring,” Nat grumbled, swinging a leg over him to sit unnecessarily on his chest. Steve tensed but didn’t say anything. She smiled, wolf to lamb. “You buying me dinner after this?” Steve raised his eyebrows.  
  
“Take me to Red Lobster if I deserve it,” he countered, catching her truly off-guard.  
  
“Oh ho! Didja hear that, Barnes?”  
  
“I heard it,” Bucky glowered. “Try to get along.” He wanted to focus on teaching Hambone to sit, but Hambone was so excited his rear end would pop up every time Bucky backed away. “You two can round the bases all you like while I get the talent in place.” Peter sighed.  
  
“This is not the pose we discussed,” he grumbled to himself. “But sure, get real close, why not.” He was already flashing to test the light, checking the digital screen and adjusting his lens. Hambone yelped playfully, darting back and forth from Peter to Bucky. “We’re losing daylight and you have like one usable practical in here besides what I brought, Barnes, you gotta calm him down.”  
  
“Oh, baby, you gotta behave,” Steve said in a stern voice from the bed. Natasha wished to God Clint was there to exchange just one telling look; she could infer enough about Steve’s proclivities to write a book, if not only the smuttiest Barista Boyfriend column, just from this very specific angle and what just came out of his mouth in that tone. She shook her head, stifling a laugh. “What?” He asked, craning his head around Natasha to see how Bucky was handling things. “How’s my good boy holding up?”  
  
“ _Better be talking about the dog,_ ” Natasha echoed in singsong. Bucky gritted his teeth.  
  
“Where to begin, Nat...”  
  
“I take it you never had a dog, Natasha?” Steve asked. Peter was snapping away, finding an angle while Bucky pleaded with Hambone.  
  
“Uh, Miss---”  
  
“Romanov,” Natasha provided curtly, speaking up to be heard over the radio, now unhelpfully providing a soundtrack of 90’s alt. Peter swallowed.  
  
“Miss Romanov, if you could lower, uh, your back? You're stealing focus”  
  
“I can.” Natasha stretched a little and straightened but didn’t actually move. Instead she locked eyes with Steve, who was trying his best not to look like an utterly bewildered mannequin. “You alright? Not crushing your ribcage with my heft?” He shook his head. “Good. And to answer your question,” she said, “Clint has a dog.”  
  
“And you have Clint?” Steve asked. Nat smiled, considering it.  
  
“I have Clint. I also have James, but he’s more of a stubborn cat.” She was happy he couldn’t hear her, over the commotion of Peter’s whining about light and keeping the dog in check all set to Gin Blossoms.  
  
“You’re a good friend,” Steve said honestly.  
  
“Trying to be, though this is top fifty weird for our friendship,” she admitted. “Between Clint and James, I have all the trouble I can handle.”  
  
“You’re the mortar, huh?”  
  
“Can’t all be bricks,” she punched at his chest, surprised she was met with considerable mass. Golden Boy was built. “Do a lot of working out at the Birdhouse?” Steve chuckled, a shallow huff with a woman sitting squarely on his diaphragm.  
  
“Cold press isn’t just a coffee technique.” Nat grinned, cheshire and happy. “But we’re keeping this conversation professional, huh,” he said, levelly. Natasha nodded.  
  
“Of course. Can I be honest with you?” She asked and Steve was practically glowing to receive such an honor. “I’m exhausted. Can I lay on your chest? I think that’s the foot thing they want, anyway, and the little guy doesn’t know how to ask me to move again,” she said in hush tone. Steve shrugged.  
  
“Go to town. More comfortable for me, anyway.” He opened his legs to accommodate her and she lay next to him with her arm slung over, fitting her feet between his and managing a less beast-with-two-backs silhouette. “For the record, I don’t want any photo credit for this,” Steve yelled over the din.  
  
“Not like your mom reads this magazine,” Peter assured him. “Just lie still, it’s almost over.” Steve laughed, then. Natasha glanced at Bucky, who swiftly turned his attention back to the dog as if he wasn’t watching this whole scene like it were a perfect rendering of a nightmare. His jaw was tight but some far-off determination pulled his strings. Natasha was glad he wasn’t in her position; he might well and truly have has a panic attack trying to keep himself composed, pressed against this guy as casually as she was. And Steve, bless him, didn’t seem to mind at all, emotionally or _physically_.  
  
“You’re really _keeping it together_ ,” she said with some admiration, glancing downward, “in terms.” Steve caught her meaning and chuckled.  
  
“Yeah, well. So far so good. Miracles of nature. Also you scare me a little.”  
  
“For some guys that’s more than enough.” Nat meant it as a joke but Steve frowned, watching Bucky as he played with Hambone and the prop sock.  
  
“Yeah?” He said, absent and low. “That doesn’t seem healthy.”  
  
“It’s not,” she said with an edge. “People are scared of all sorts of things. Some more reasonably than others.”  
  
“What’re you scared of?” Steve asked.  
  
“History repeating.” If Steve thought this experience had brought them closer together, he felt instantly pushed away. But he understood, and made that clear as he locked eyes and nodded. He wouldn’t let it.  
  
“Okay. Hambone, buddy. Look here, doggo, come on.” Peter was obviously frustrated with the dog. Hambone was utterly over-stimulated with the flashing, hearing his name over and over and not understanding any commands. Steve frowned.  
  
“Try some kissy noises, kid. Don’t yell at him.”  
  
“You really know all the pro moves, Rogers,” Natasha said with only a hint of ambiguity. But Peter wasn’t the one making the kissy noises now.  
  
“Look here, angel. Sweet boy, right here. Good boy. So good.” Bucky could coax the honey out of a buzzing hive when he used a voice like that, and Natasha felt Steve shift just slightly. Stealing a look at his face she was glad they would be out of focus; he was red at the edges like old embers in a fresh gust of wind, and concentrating hard, obviously combating any thought that might inspire both senses of the word. “Look at me. Just like that, what a sweetheart you are, don’t you look away,” Bucky continued. Steve shifted again, more noticeably, and putting the two and two together was too easy. Natasha flicked his cheek.  
  
“You’re a good friend, too,” she said pointedly. Steve nodded, his stare grave.  
  
“Trying to be.” And Natasha nodded back. They understood each other. He breathed, concentrated, focused on literally anything else. Peter, oblivious and snapping, happily adjusted his position to and fro.  
  
“Hey, that’s much better. Should we try the dog on the bed, maybe some sexier music---”  
  
“No,” replied everyone in the room and Peter ducked back behind his camera. Steve nearly leaped from the covers at that point for all he could stand, and Clint was wiping tears from his eyes as Natasha described his very militant boner control, trying to keep his laughter from seeping into the living room where it was entirely probable, in Nat's estimation, that lacking any gumption to do otherwise, Bucky was just watching Steve sleep.

* * *

The right thing to do was either to wake him up and put him in a cab, or lay him down and put a blanket over him. Two very noble options. Somewhere around plan G or H was “watch him sleep, memorize his little face, stay exactly where you are for the next nine hundred hours and don’t think about any previous hour you have lived,” and Bucky went with that, because only God could judge him.

“I'm definitely asleep in case you wanted to have a really beautiful confessional moment,” Steve whispered and Bucky twitched, startled but suddenly angry to have his moment deflated. “Tell the sleeping boy all your secrets.”

“Sleeping boy," he confided, "I’ve always dreamed of suffocating a house guest with a throw pillow.”  
  
“I’m up,” Steve launched from the couch and Bucky felt that sweet, caramel-slow fondness in their easy play. “I can take a hint, goodbye.”  
  
“You don’t have to go.” He offered, quickly backtracking. “I mean, not like that. I just---” Steve salvaged.  
  
“Well, somebody has to clean up, huh?” He shut off the TV and brought an armful of empties to the sink and Bucky followed. He filled the basin with warm water.  
  
“Don’t clean up. You’ve done enough. You can snooze.” Steve shrugged.  
  
“I want to.”  
  
“No you don’t.”  
  
“You can trust me to say what I mean,” Steve said with more force than he intended and Bucky looked away, focusing on gathering plates for the sink. Steve sighed deeply. Bucky’s breathing remained shallow and rationed, and he took one rattling breath before launch.  
  
“Look, I--- Jesus.” He exhaled. “I’m so sorry.”  
  
“Hey, for what? Look at all the new friends I made today. I think I still smell like your roommate’s perfume.” Steve nudged Bucky, who squeezed out the sponge weakly and set it on the sink side without making a go at any of the dishes.  
  
“You do.”  
  
“And my feet are going to be famous,” Steve continued, wringing every bit of humor he could from the day. “And Hambone went home to a little girl who’s going to love him better than I can, though my heart may never recover. If you’re sorry for that, I accept your apology.”  
  
“Steve---”  
  
“That’s the only apology I will be accepting today, I’m very sorry. You’re going to have to save the rest for another time,” Steve asserted, “which is never.” Bucky snorted and met his gaze for a moment, grateful to have something steady in such a strange and fast evening that existed otherwise only in pieces.  
  
“Okay. Thank you,” he managed. “You’re some kind of saint.”  
  
“Maybe. I guess you never know,” Steve said, grabbing a towel. “You wash, I'll dry. They'll speed up the canonization process at the drop of a hat these days. Almost too easy. Anyway, I can think of worse ways to be martyred, that’s for sure.” Bucky laughed halfheartedly, swirling blue soap into the water to bubble, and Steve felt supremely validated by even that.  
  
“God.” Bucky glanced over at his phone and sighed. “I have to talk to him, don’t I.” Steve shrugged, remembering Brock on the bench, that sad and ugly shadow.  
  
“You don’t, though. Not even a little.” Bucky handed him a dripping plate.  
  
“Yeah I was in total agreement with you on that up until he showed up in my fucking building and my whole brain shut down and the dog started talking to me.” Steve stopped.

“Wait, what?”  
  
“The dog talked to me. I--- I guess I blacked out, or--- hallucinated something.” Bucky realized how it sounded but it couldn’t be ignored.  
  
“Holy shit!” Steve suddenly realized why Bucky was so quiet then. “You were stock still. I thought you were just ignoring him. High road kind of thing! I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize!” He rubbed the worry out of his forehead, leaning back on the counter. Bucky laughed, high and cold.  
  
“No. Fuck no! I have no high road. I dig leagues beneath the low road.”  
  
“I’m pretty sure if anyone in that hall was subterranean, it was the man that called a young girl he didn’t know a ‘ginger fucktoy.’” Steve winced at his own voice trying the words. Bucky had heard worse. A catalog of possibilities scrolled in his mind, a long and terrifying list. If Bucky considered himself a wordsmith, Brock was a dark wizard. The things he did with that horrible reptile tongue were inhuman; that was one reason out of a desperate few that Bucky was morbidly attracted to him.  
  
“That all?” He asked. The rush of horror in Steve’s wide eyes didn’t make matters easier.  
  
“No, but _shit_ , what do you mean, _is that all?_ What does he do when he’s really mad?” Bucky stilled, and didn’t answer. It occurred to Steve to change the subject, clumsy while quietly direct. “What did the dog say? When you blacked out.” Bucky ran a wet hand through his hair, realizing how disheveled he looked and wishing he could at least look smart while he said something stupid.  
  
“Very philosophical,” he admitted, hoping it was funnier than sad, “about being in his cage. How he understood why I was dissociating. He---” Bucky laughed softly, hearing himself, “he called me Yasha.”  
  
“Yasha?”  
  
“Yeah. I went to a boarding school, this--- horrible place. With Nat, as kids." He couldn't believe he wanted to tell another human this but he suddenly, desperately wanted Steve to know. "One of the instructors called me Yasha, when I was good. Just like a dog, I guess. It was the only kindness I could get, and I worked so hard for it. The place was a ring of hell but that--- the dog pulled it out of some safe space in the back of my mind. I don’t think anybody knows that name.”  
  
“Well, now I do.” Steve looked so fond it made Bucky want to cry. He loosened his fists in the soapy water; he hadn't realized he was clenching them again, a white-knuckle murder grasp at nothing. And suddenly, there was a lightness where there hadn't been.    
  
“You do.”  
  
“Yasha," he repeated, and Bucky’s eyes involuntarily welled thick. “You’re a good man.”

“You don’t know. You don't know half of---” Bucky gestured recklessly at the door and the echo of Brock, throwing a line of soapy drips across the room and Steve, who shrugged stubbornly.  
  
“I don’t _care_.”  
  
“That’s stupid!" Bucky could feel his voice raising, anger misplaced from all over. "That's so stupid, Steve!"  
  
“Then I’m stupid.”  
  
“You _are_ stupid.” He shoved another clean dish at Steve. They washed and dried in silence for a minute.  
  
“We promised only positive re-enforcement, Buck," Steve muttered. Bucky glared at the water.  
  
“It’s not Saturday morning. I can call it like I see it all I want.”  
  
“You want to hurt my feelings?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“See, you are good.”  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
“ _Yasha._ ”  
  
“I never should have told you.”  
  
“Apparently Hambone would have spilled the beans eventually.” Steve stacked the dry plates and decided to be honest. "I saw him outside earlier. When I went for the pizza. Brock." Bucky jerked to face him, a child's fear deep in his eyes, and Steve quickly backtracked. This wasn't the conversation he wanted to have, and he didn't know how to have it if they did. "He's gone, now. He's gone. He's not coming back. I think that was it for him. You're fine," he tried without knowing, "he won't get to you."  
  
"He already has, Steve." Bucky ran his hands shakily through his hair again. Steve didn't have anything to say to that; he worried it was true. Bucky took the towel from him. "You should go. I'm not going to sleep. I can't."  
  
"I could not-sleep along with you." Steve offered himself up, martyr on the block to Bucky's axe, and Bucky couldn't understand it. For a moment he wondered if he ever would, or if that's something Brock had stolen from him too long ago. "I already had a little nap. You wanna pick something dumb to marathon? You probably don't want to do--- alone," he offered. Bucky studied his face. There was surface handsome there, of course, sweet even breaks and crests over his skin like a calm sea, and some of the brightness Bucky craved so fiercely when he wasn't around, that pure-grade goodness that no living human ought to deserve or betray. He was smiling. "C'mon. I know what I'm getting myself into, if that's your next argument."  
  
"No," Bucky grimaced. "I should tell you no."  
  
"You _should_ have told me Hambone would be going home with another man. You're a terrible yenta, Yasha. You owe me," Steve said, low as to not wake the roommates but through that playful smile that Bucky loved and hated.  
  
"More than I care to admit," Bucky sighed. Steve had that challenge-me look, and he was just too tired to fight him. In fact, he was inwardly grateful not to. "Have you heard of this show _Hellevator_? It's like Legends of the Hidden Temple but for adults and in a tacky horror movie dungeon for lots of money."  
  
"Sounds terrible." Steve fell into the couch and patted the cushion next to him, just far enough for a boundary, just close enough for open interpretation. "Let's watch all of it."

* * *

When Clint came out for water at 3 am, the Netflix menu was asking whether they were still watching Hellevator, and, only barely grazing each other's space in positions that would never forgive their necks tomorrow, peaceful and dreaming beneath the same fleece throw, Steve and Bucky decidedly were not. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (((((IT TOOK ME SO LONG to write myself out of a dark hole this month; this is NOT an economical chapter by any means but life goes on... have a [Halloween treat](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8355931) as penance <3 Thanks for reading, and your endless patience!)))))


	10. Dynamic/Static

In all the highest tech sci-fi and fantasy movies, the big shots have glass offices. They look out on their employees and nothing gets past the CEO panopticon, a constant surveillance keeping the cogs turning in place. Tony Stark had one glass wall and a thick velvet curtain; he didn’t like the underlings to see him watching videos of toddlers playing impossible Metallica drum solos on his break. There was a good bit of debate over that curtain. It could not be red (too theatrical) or black (too sensual) or purple (who was he, Prince?) or white (who was he, Bjork?) and he landed on a dark, slate grey. Tony was made aware the interns called it The Iron Curtain, and that wasn’t inaccurate. His girlfriend laughed for a solid minute when he asked her to look at fabric swatches with him and every one of his choices looked like it could double as a great velour tracksuit. Tony thought that would be an incredible power move: to one day call a board meeting in that office with the grey velvet curtains in a perfectly matching and tailored grey velvet suit. He dreamed of that moment. It was only fitting that he was entertaining this fantasy, once again, as he looked over the charcoal spread for the next issue, as if charcoal was some big breakthrough for suits in general. He rolled his eyes and pushed it aside. He ran his fingertips over the crisp lines of his goatee, a fidgeting tactile habit he worked hard not to exercise in front of too many people, and turned to the stack of personal letters in his inbox. The number was greater than usual due to the holidays, though it represented a typically high population of journalists who owed him more than just a card. He ripped through the first few, formal and heartless with no personal flair, and suddenly was caught by a hand-written address and a homemade card. It had a kitten sleeping in a Santa hat on the front.

 _Dear Mr. Barnes, Miss Green, and Mr. Stark,_ _  
_ _  
_ _It is with incredible gratitude and great pleasure that I send you this holiday card. In the past two weeks, since the publication of your magazine featuring a spotlight on our shelter at the end of November, we have matched more dogs and cats with loving families than in the past two months. It goes to show that even a small gesture can make a great positive difference and we are so thankful that so many paws have warm homes this winter. Thank you for your continued twitter support. We love every one of your sweet photos of our residents and your kindness is a blessing to us. Wishing you a very, very happy holiday season!_ _  
_ _  
_ _Selina Kyle, managing director_ _  
_ _PAWS Humane Society  
_  
Tony threw open the Iron Curtain.  
  
“Barnes!” He barked and Bucky’s head sleepily jerked up at his desk.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“I didn’t properly congratulate you in front of all your grimy peers for doing a good job on that sock spread with the dog in the fall issue. That was a fucking good idea. Your Christmas bonus is going to reflect it. Where’s the kid who’s blowing up our twitter?” He demanded, the Christmas card in hand and half a smile on his face.  
  
“Uhh,” Bucky was genuinely caught off-guard. “Doreen’s shadowing in HR with Sharon to see if she likes it. But if you need something, Scott also helped and---”  
  
“Absolutely not. They can’t have her, we need her in Creative,” Stark declared, adding, “and I know you helped, Lang, pleased with your work too, kiddo.” Scott swatted at the air bashfully.  
  
“Thanks, Dad,” he grinned. “I’m just happy to be here.”  
  
“That’s the right attitude,” Tony said offhandedly then, his attentions starting to zero in on coworkers who were watching with what was either envy or fear. Tony never missed an opportunity. “The rest of you shitheads work harder to be better humans and make us money. Onward and upward!” He exclaimed, and Tony was gone again, through his office door with the curtain drawn over the great glass pane. Bucky blinked, astonished.  
  
“He complimented me,” he balked. “Years of cleaning up messes and it’s some random cute dog on social media that gets me a raise.” Bucky dismissed it as luck, as always selling himself short. The cute dog on social media was a big deal, even by social media standards. While it was just short of actually going viral, it doubled their web traffic in a matter of days, and Doreen had been able to keep the magazine twitter queue stocked with pictures of shelter animals that were always, somehow, simultaneously talking up one of their web articles. They set up a donation link for Giving Tuesday and even got a few write-ups on other news outlets for their ‘surprising generosity.’ It was successful in a way that Bucky would never have imagined. He met with Doreen every morning to be excited about it and keep things moving and as a result had gotten less sleep in the last month than ever before. Natasha left him notes on the fridge when they went days without crossing paths. Work-life balance was a thing of the past.  
  
“God bless America, am I right?” Scott grinned. “Thanks for letting me have some credit, Mr. Bigshot. You’re gonna get a curtain of your own someday and forget about us cretins.”  
  
“Loyalty over royalty, in the immortal words of Fetty Wap,” Bucky replied. He scribbled his signature on a couple of tabbed contracts in a stack on his desk, finishing with a pointed jab of the pen. “Couldn’t have done it without you, Scott. I do mean that, given how weird that day was.” Bucky had relived what pieces he picked up several hundred times since then, as he was doing now. He shook away a moment that always stuck, a particular look in Steve’s eyes as they washed dishes together. He couldn’t figure out what about it fixed to his memory, but it set the rest of that night in weird relief. It was the kind of look that left too much unsaid.  _Steve_.  
  
“You could have made up literally any name just then and I would have believed it was a rapper,” Scott pointed out. “That’s a rapper, right?”  
  
“I thought you were supposed to be a cool dad?” Bucky said through a smirk, fishing his phone out of his coat pocket on the back of his chair, unable to ignore the now-chanting mantra of _Steve-Steve-Steve_ somewhere rattling between cognitive function and lunacy. Scott shrugged.  
  
“I am a cool dad. But I’m like a Steely Dan dad.”  
  
“Those are not the same thing,” Bucky said without looking up from the text he was drafting. Scott noticed.  
  
“Would you say you send five hundred texts a day or seven hundred? Ballpark. Are you on a double-unlimited plan because you started using up other infinites? Asking for a friend.”  
  
“I’m not that bad,” Bucky said noncommittally.  
  
“You type faster on the little keyboard than you do on the big-person one!" Scott exclaimed.  
  
“I type seventy-five words per minute on the big-person keyboard, thanks. And as a man who just got a Christmas bonus I think I am allowed to send a simple text.” Scott started taking his pen apart at his desk, playing with the spring uselessly.  
  
“Is it an eggplant?” Scott spoke with an audible wink.  
  
“No,” Bucky scowled. “It is a snail. He said he was feeling sluggish.”   
  
“How’s that going? Steve,” he clarified, as if it weren’t obvious. Bucky’d been surprised it hadn’t come up more often since the photo shoot, but Scott managed to keep in-office small talk pretty impersonal, save for Hambone matters.  
  
“Uh,” Bucky hesitated. “We text constantly. We’ve been kind of too busy for it. So, also sluggish. Kind of back burner.”  
  
“Because you _wanted_ to take it slow?” Scott asked. Bucky shrugged, worried that was true. “I mean, no judgment but the guy that your intern popped seems like maybe was the opposite of slow and turned out to be a literal cartoon villain, so that doesn’t seem unreasonable. Bakery fella was nice, though.” Scott said. “Are we taking lunch? It feels like we’re taking lunch.”  
  
“Yeah,” Bucky conceded, pocketing his phone again, “let’s take lunch.” Scott launched from his chair.  
  
“Cool. We can check on Hambone on this dog walker app I downloaded. The kid will take as many photos of him as I ask, and I ask literally every hour. She always captions them ‘CAPTAIN’S LOG, STARDATE’ whatever time it is? It’s incredible.”  
  
“I hope you’re tipping her well," Bucky muttered, putting on his coat. At Scott's work station there were now just as many photos of the dog as there were of his daughter.  
  
“I’m going to get her an entire honey-baked ham for Christmas.” The word hit Bucky with a sting; the holidays weren’t too far off and he hadn’t given it more than a passing thought. He felt exhausted just thinking about it.   
  
“That’s specific,” he said instead.  
  
“Because _Hambone_. Get it? It’s like an in-joke.” Scott was patting down every pocket for his gloves. Bucky was ready to go.  
  
“How is it that you manage to get dad all over everything you touch? Nothing is safe from you,” he said with a fond smile. Scott shrugged.  
  
“It’s a gift.” He followed Bucky, their banter easy though Bucky was considering, in a far corner of his brain, how he was going to handle Steve for Christmas. Not _handle_. But still. He wasn't purposely avoiding him, he didn't think. On the other hand, he never had to worry about it if it never happened, which was dangerously easy to arrange.  
  
“I hope the walker's not a vegetarian,” he said. Scott put his phone in his mouth while he took his gloves off again and hit the elevator button.  
  
“You know, I’m not sure,” he mumbled. Bucky laughed absently.  
  
“Probably a good thing to figure out before you buy a whole ham.”  
  
“Smart. This is why you’re getting a Christmas bonus.”  
  
“Must be.”  
  
“Slow and quiet is kind of nice, though, if you ask me. ”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Your thing with Steve,” Scott clarified again, watching the numbers above the elevator light at a glacial pace. “Like it’s nice to take your time and feel your feelings, you know? It's important to have somebody like that.”  
  
“Yeah. So wise, Scott.” Bucky hit the down button again as if asking a second time would make it arrive faster, pause the thought, as if he hadn’t been thinking about Steve in the interim anyway. Scott held out his phone to him.  
  
“Look at this. ‘Captain’s log, Stardate 12142016, Starfleet continues to engage enemy squirrels at Oz Park.’ This is the best money I ever spent, after that panini press I started putting my socks in.” There was a brown blur in the middle of the screen that was probably Hambone.  
  
“So wise,” Bucky echoed, shaking his head. “Forward me that picture, will ya?”  
  
“Not so stupid now, huh.”  
  
“Steve will love it,” Bucky smiled down at his phone as he sent it off. “I’m surprised he hasn’t demanded a visit.”  
  
“From Hambone or from you?” Bucky stopped to consider it.  
  
“Both, I guess.” In a lucky moment Doreen appeared in the elevator as the doors opened. She was very happy to see them.  
  
“So I hate HR,” she said cheerily, “and I don’t want to do it ever again!” Bucky nodded as they switched places with a high five.  
  
“Figured as much,” he said, returning her smile. “Go knock on Tony’s door. I think he has better ideas for you. Don’t forget to mention all the code work you’ve done and ask for more money no matter where he starts you,” he said. Doreen looked back at him with ‘don’t leave me’ horror as the doors shut. Bucky let his mind wander while Scott recounted the entirety of his Thanksgiving dinner, most of which Bucky had already heard. In truth, Thanksgiving had passed him without ceremony. He did the family thing very briefly and was back in the city before he knew it. Steve had gone out to the suburbs to spend the weekend with Sam’s family. Christmas loomed. Last Christmas wasn’t exactly sugarplums. He preferred not to think about it. In fact, he had almost wholly replaced the memory of Christmas with (but mostly _without_ , when it counted,) Brock with the image of him slamming peppermint schnapps and writing Barista Boyfriend tidbits that were too sad or too explicit to publish.  
  
**Steve**  
_WHAT A TEASE_  
  
**Bucky**  
Are dog pics nsfw for you?  
I’ll warn you next time  
  
**Steve**  
_Next time, pics of you, please_  
  
**Bucky**  
Yeah, no?   
  
**Steve**  
_HOLD UP, NO DICKS_  
_I just miss you_  
_No offense, Bucky’s Duck_  
_Dick_  
  
**Bucky**  
My duck is not offended  
  
**Steve**  
_Quack quack_

“---so I ended up seeing her entire family except for the aunt with the botulism.” Bucky suddenly looked up. They were already picking up sandwiches at the counter across the street. He’d been on autopilot.  
  
“ _What_?”  
  
“Not important. Just my life story. Steve?” Scott asked, gesturing at Bucky’s hands. Bucky nodded, slowly. “That’s a sad face.”  
  
“I miss him.” The words fell out softly, new on his tongue. He scrolled back up through text chains. Steve, constantly reaching out some small affection; Bucky, deflecting, distracted, busy. _Wasting time on purpose_.  
  
“There’s a way that people fix that,” Scott said, shoving a handful of chips in his face. Bucky’s eyebrows knit so hard they hurt; he had this conversation before, with Nat, with the mirror.  
  
“Yeah. I know. But---”  
  
“Probably time to move in together, then.” Bucky must have looked particularly startled by that because Scott stopped chewing and realized. “Oh. You’re _not_ dating.”  
  
“No," he admitted, and it hit the floor with a dull thud.  _Why?_  
  
"Well, don't punish yourself for missing the last train by letting the next one pass you by, you know?" Bucky looked up at Scott, hearing him for the first time that day. The words knocked the wind right out of him, and Scott blithely continued chatting. "But sure, one step at a time and all that. Maybe call instead of text, I don’t know.” As if by providence, Bucky’s phone rang in his pocket. “See? I just know these things.” Bucky fumbled between his sandwich and his gloves to retrieve it on the fourth ring. It was Doreen.  
  
“Dor?” He looked meaningfully at Scott. “‘S Doreen,” he whispered, away from the phone. Scott frowned.  
  
“Hey! You didn’t tell me you got promoted, you doof! Congratulations!” Bucky turned down the volume; Doreen’s celebratory voice was a step above her normal voice which was a step above stage projection in an era before amplification.  
  
“I didn’t tell you because I wasn’t promoted. I'm supposedly getting a better year end bonus,” he explained. “Is that going around the office?” He asked, a little proud.  
  
“Uh---,” Doreen trailed off. “No? Uh. Tony just told me I could have your job. So I--- assumed that--- you got a better one?” Bucky stared into space as the words registered. “Uh oh. I probably wasn’t supposed to say. Things. Oh nuts---”  
  
“Did you take it?” Bucky shoved everything he was juggling into Scott’s hands. There was silence on the other end. “ _Doreen_?”  
  
“Uh. What?” She sounded scared and Bucky thought maybe he did, too. He just got a bonus. _He couldn’t be fired. So---?  
_  
“My job---” He caught himself. “The position. Did you take the position?”  
  
“I--- maybe you could come back and talk to him and then---”  
  
“Yeah. Okay. Don’t worry, Dor. Congratulations. I’m sure it’s only good news. Just--- don’t worry.” Bucky hung up the phone and Scott quirked an eyebrow over their sandwiches.  
  
“Congratulations?”  
  
“Doreen just got my job.”   
  
“So," Scott attempted to follow, "what job do you have now?”  
  
“I don’t know. I need to talk to Tony.” Scott could already tell lunch was over and was shoving napkins in his pockets to take back to the office. For as dopey as he could be, he somehow managed to be a great teammate. Remembering earlier times at the magazine together, Bucky would not have predicted them friends. He was glad for it now. His mind swam as they walked, Scott sneaking bites of bread as they wove through tightly bundled tourists on the sidewalk. The cold was settling fast and Bucky’s heart raced against it.  
  
**Steve**  
_It’s probably just the season_  
  
**Bucky**  
What?  
  
**Steve**  
_Wintertime is harder, you know?_  
_for me anyway_  
_Hey Can I call you?_  
  
“Fuck,” Bucky huffed as he held the door for Scott. “Fucking fuck.”  _What's wrong?  
_  
“And they say chivalry’s dead,” Scott said, loosening his scarf.   
  
“Sorry, not you. I need to think.”  
  
**Bucky**  
Now’s not great  
Gimme an hour I’ll call  
please sorry I know  
  
“What’s to think about?” Scott asked. “I don't wanna jynx it, but it sounds like a promotion. A promotion would be incredible. You’d actually be writing.” Bucky shook his head.  
  
“I don’t know if I should.”  
  
“Have a better job?”   
  
“Any of it. I---” His breath caught. _What happens when you get what you want?_ “I’m already working more hours than I have to spare. I gave up my hobbies and---”  
  
**Steve**  
_Take your time_  
  
Bucky held the phone to his chest. How could any one person be so good? He didn’t _have_ time; he was already knocking on Stark’s door.  
  
_What do you want, Bucky?  
  
_ But for once, when he asked himself, he knew.

* * *

Cold days brought people to the Birdhouse in droves and Sam was in top form. The frenzies energized him, between streamlining orders at the register and his teenagers still getting their sea legs. Typically, he and Steve had no trouble managing together, but the latter seemed to be working at half speed in spite of the rush. Sam gave him a wide berth instead of hounding him; there wasn’t time for negativity in this fast-paced holiday environment. At the day’s end, a rare break fifteen minutes to close, he managed to make a tea for Steve, a mix of chestnut and mint loose leaves that tasted very subtly and naturally like a girl scout cookie. Steve chuckled.  
  
“What a sweet gesture, young man,” he said. “I hope you left your number on the napkin.” Sam laughed but it didn't escape him that Steve managed not to crack a smile that hit his eyes.  
  
“Nah, I can’t compete with your brooding writer," he said hopefully, baiting him. Steve huffed, taking a sip of tea before returning to cleaning out the espresso machine that was either clogged or short-circuiting, a feeling he could strongly relate to at the moment.   
  
“Sure you can," he grumbled. "You speak more than ten words to me a week with your real voice.” Sam folded his arms, his already-bare tolerance for Bucky slipping further.  
  
“That's a low bar.”  
  
“I mean, yeah," he said halfheartedly, "but I’m just not feeling so hot. Sorry.” Sam decided not to mention that the prevalence of Stevie Nicks in the playlists that weren't Mandatory Christmas might have tipped him off even if his subtle degeneration into gloom had not. Every piece of machinery had been fixed or cleaned in the last week. Stress baking had doubled.  
  
“Hence the tea. I’m not blind."  
  
“Well I’m not trying to hide anything from you," Steve said curtly, scrubbing the steel wool a little harder than necessary. Sam tapped one of his teens to take over the register.  
  
“No shit, you're not."   
  
"Well fuck, Sam, we live together and we work together, it'd be really hard for me to keep anything secret from you even if I wanted to!" Steve snapped, setting down the machine with a punctuating slam. Sam gestured meaningfully.  
  
“Which is definitely why you’re suddenly so defensive about it? You'll notice I didn’t ask.”  
  
“You didn’t have to. It's really nice to have friends who know you so well, huh?" Steve was glaring daggers, which, in his Christmas sweater was such a specific look that Sam had to actively repress a laugh.   
  
“Hey, slick, all I did was make you a tea! We work in a coffee shop," he pointed out, trying to deescalate. "That's not an act of war.”  
  
“I’m an open book, okay? Ask away.”

"Okay, fine. I’ll bite," Sam sighed. "I’m gonna skip the ‘what’s bothering you’ then and move to something more petty. You and him dating yet or what?” Steve picked the machine back up and fiddled uselessly with the filter.

"No.”

"Do you want to be dating?" Sam plated a piece of gingerbread and slid it to the register, fulfilling orders even while he Maury-ed Steve into sharing his feelings.

"I don't think it matters. It’s kind of fine as it is.” Steve shrugged. Sam narrowed his eyes.

"Kind of fine but you wanna kiss him."

"Who _doesn’t_ wanna kiss him, Sam, honestly! Can I just clean this machine in peace?!" He exclaimed, exhaustion and hurt suddenly pouring out like a rush of steam. "Do I wanna kiss him, of course I wanna kiss him. Ridiculous.” He grumbled to himself while Sam moved around him, making another round of lattes with the second string espresso machine. 

"All the time?" He asked when the steamer calmed. Steve groaned.

"Constantly."

"And bump uglies?"

"Graphic." Steve ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots. "That is so graphic, Sam.”

"But?" He smiled. Steve rolled his eyes.

"But  _yeah_ , Sam, like you wouldn't believe," he hissed sarcastically. "A man has  _Needs_. Physical longings, needs of the---"

"Okay, okay," Sam suddenly backed down and Steve knew he'd hit Sam's limit of personal information. "So does he know that?"

"I have never been subtle." 

"Now, that I know," Sam rolled his eyes. "Not in your whole life. But sexual frustration isn’t making you sad.”  
  
“I’m not sad.” Steve took his phone out of his pocket and, while considering a text he could send and wouldn't, shoved it back in his pocket.  
  
“Fuck you, _you’re not sad!_ " Sam exclaimed, lowering his voice as a mother and child walked in the front door. "Bullshit. Call a spade a spade, dude. Something's up. Something else. You know we can talk."

"I just think---" Steve sighed and shook the thought. "Never mind."

"Nah, I know you think something. You're never not thinking. What do you think?"

"I’m just being clingy. It’s fine and I’ll get over it," he said. Sam didn't budge.

"Wrong answer, try again.”  
  
“I just--- Christmas is--- I don’t want to treat anybody like an emotional dumpster, okay---” A sudden crash cut off his train of thought as the young boy dropped a glass teacup on the ground and it shattered with ceremonious panache. Sam launched into action and pulled the broom out with him. The mother showered him with apologies and all dwindling action in the cafe seemed to hush. The little boy stood staring, eyes wide with terror, as adults rushed around him. His mother picked him up and sat him on a stool, watching as his disaster was swept away. Conversations of the last straggling customers picked up again and Steve found himself watching the little boy as Sam assured the mother she didn’t have to pay for anything and went about making her something else. She followed him to the register and thanked him profusely. The boy watched and hiccuped. Steve poked him on the shoulder.  
  
“You okay, bud?” He asked. The little boy turned to face him, floppy winter hat obscuring his vision. Tears were silently streaming down his face.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he managed, tugging his hat off with a static puff that left his hair like a dandelion. “I thought I could carry it. Mom asked me to carry it.” Steve bent to look him more directly in the eyes, setting the machine aside.  
  
“It’s okay. Adults drop things, too.”  
  
“She’s gonna be so mad.” His little voice quivered with the weight of agony children could spin from thin air and Steve felt his heart start to tear. “What if she’s so mad?”  
  
“I don’t think she’ll be mad. Your mom loves you all the way to the moon, I bet. Is that true?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Moms understand when you try your best. Sometimes you slip up. It’s okay.” Steve heard his mother’s voice in his own for a split second and it pulled him backward, heavy. He cleared his throat. “You know there’s a saying, no use crying over spilt milk?”  
  
“What’s spilt?” The boy asked, wiping a tear with his hat clenched in his little fist. Steve started to explain when the mother came over, a to-go cup in hand and a very tight frown.  
  
“Did you apologize to the man, Tommy?”  
  
“Yeah.” The boy looked at Steve with a grimace. “I told you,” he whispered. Steve looked up at the woman.  
  
“He was a perfect gentleman. And he’s very worried you are mad, and I told him you shouldn’t be.” The woman’s look softened and she sighed very deeply.  
  
“We’re feeling clumsy this evening,” she said. When he looked at his sneakers, embarrassed, she very quickly put a hand on his head lovingly. “But Tommy is a great artist and very interested in rockets, which are his two very special talents. Hm? My Space case?” The boy looked up at her with a crooked smile.  
  
“Mooomm,” he groaned. “Don’t say!”  
  
“Okay. I just want to brag about you sometimes because I’m proud. Don’t feel bad about the mug, baby,” she said, planting a kiss on his cheek. Steve felt another tug at his ribcage.  
  
“I’m an artist, too,” he said. “Next time you visit, we can do some drawing.”

“Wow!” The boy beamed and they said goodbye. He hopped off the bar stool and took his mom’s free hand.  
  
“We made a friend,” she said to him as they walked away.  
  
“Don’t worry, you’re still my best friend,” the boy said, and they were gone and Steve felt a tension in his hands that built to a tremor and a full body shake. He swallowed it down and got back to the espresso machine. Sam came behind him to fill a mug with dark roast.  
  
“What were we talking about?” He asked, occupied again. Steve shook his head.  
  
“Nothing.” He twisted away at a screw that wouldn’t budge. “This thing is either fucking rusted shut, or---” something suddenly gave way and he scraped the underside of his arm along the back of the machine, hissing painfully. “Jesus Christ! It’s fucking stripped!” He shouted, slamming down the screwdriver.  
  
“Okay,” Sam slid the screwdriver away. “You’re gonna go clean up in back while I close, and we’re all super thankful that kid wasn’t here to learn some new words, alright? You’re alright. The machine is a goner.”  
  
“I can fix it," Steve nearly pleaded and Sam smacked him on the shoulder.  
  
“Yeah, well I don’t care about the machine, I decided! Take a lap and cool down before we go home!”

"I'm gonna stay here and bake," Steve grumbled, turning on his heel with the broken espresso machine in his arms like a horrible robot baby. Sam let out a ragged sigh, looking out on the cafe instead of after him, knowing Steve didn't appreciate a hovering eye. His least favorite Teen was spraying down some sticky spill at the other end of the counter, pretending she didn't overhear the domestic spat. He dismissed her. The Birdhouse was empty but the sound system was still playing The Chain, as if he needed some atmospheric reminder that relationships came in all sorts of broken colors, even friendships. He rolled his eyes and found his coat. For once, he was absolutely sure he was not in a position to help Steve. Locking the door behind him, he pulled out his phone, breathing irritated clouds around him in the winter night.

 **Sam**  
_I’m not trying to butt in_  
_But you need to get YOUR butt IN here_  
_Emotionally_  
_Like any day now Barnes_  
_How about today_  
_How about today you care a little more_  
_This is the day to do it_  
_This is probably the last day_  
_It is definitely the last and only day I will be the one to tell you_  
  
**Bucky**  
Was already on my way  
  
He almost couldn't believe his charity. Just in case, he picked up Steve's favorite beer on the way home. He didn't want to entertain the thought that Bucky would let them both down, but he never put all his eggs in one shitty basket if he could help it.

* * *

It was quiet in the cafe for a while and then it wasn't; Steve slammed his fists into dough like it might fight back. He had the option of the stand mixer hook but it lay dormant for a good reason: he needed to do this himself. With sleeves haphazardly crunched to the elbow and flour all over the happy snowman sweater he focused on the blows and not on the seed of his frustration. He let the music guide him, tugging and kneading in time. When he grew tired he finally heard pounding on the front doors. Bucky stood in the cold, nose red and runny, and a wave of embarrassment blindsided Steve as he realized what Bucky must think, to have come here after hours. He scrambled to unlock and let him in.  
  
"Sorry, the music is really loud," Steve said to the floor tiles. Bucky shook off the cold as he unbundled, wary.  
  
"Yeah?" He responded lamely, grasping for any gauge he could. Steve didn't look particularly beaten up or angry, but then he didn't look much of anything, which was frightening in and of itself.  
  
"Yeah," Steve said, gesturing to Bucky to follow towards the light of the kitchen and out of the dim cafe, lit only by the Christmas lights lining the windows. "Come on back. Long time no see, huh?" Bucky wished he could have seen Steve's face as he said it, measured the meaning, but he followed cautiously with no sense for the intent. The day had unfolded with so many variables and wild cards that somehow played in his favor that he was more than willing to take a sudden risk. Given he came prepared with good news to counter whatever went wrong, he went for broke.  
  
"I've been working a lot," he admitted, "and avoiding you." Steve wheeled around to look him in the eye, shock flashing over his features that settled into a deep exhaustion. He stared for a second, processing and searching Bucky's face.    
  
"If you're about to break up with me, I'm going to remind you that we weren't dating. You could have called and saved yourself the trouble."  
  
"What?" Taken aback, Bucky tensed at the thought. The cold hurt on Steve's face cut him hard. "No, Steve, I came to apologize for being a shitty friend. Break up with you? Do you think I'd do that?"   
  
"I don't know. It just feels like that moment. I know what falling apart feels like." He returned to his baking like the conversation was over. Bucky wanted to throw down his gloves and drag the defeat out of him but there was such a low haze of pain in the room that he couldn't bring himself to fight.  
  
"I bet that dough does, too," he joked lamely. "Hope he doesn't have a wife and kids at home. You know he's good for the money."  
  
"Ha-ha. Good joke. Did Sam tell you to come cheer me up?" Steve glared at the dough. Bucky didn't bother lying.  
  
"Do you _need_ to be cheered up?"  
  
"No."  
  
"So what did you want to talk about this afternoon?" He asked. Steve sighed heavily, shutting his eyes.  
  
"I really wanted to hear your voice. I don't know why. I thought maybe that would help. I didn't mean to bother you."  
  
"You couldn't bother me." Bucky said it so quickly he must have meant it. He waited for a response but none came; Steve didn't believe him. He looked around at the kitchen carnage, like Pollack worked in flour, and suddenly rested upon the storied espresso maker. "What's up with the mechanics?" He asked. Steve grunted, rolling out the dough now into a square. _That damn machine._  
  
"One more thing in a long list of things that I can't fucking fix!" He snarled just so that Bucky recoiled, eyes wide and wary as a rabbit's. Steve had seen Bucky get that look before, only once, the last and only time he crossed paths with Brock Rumlow, and his stomach fell to his feet. It was just like him to drag Bucky in with him, Bucky with his own hurts and vulnerable heart, Bucky with his caring eyes, Bucky with his own life before and after Steve. As it occurred to him that his guilt now had guilt and disappointment was catching, something yanked the thread through the back of his throat then, painful, loosing a dark clog like black vines, and spilled his sorrows on the counter with a heaving sob. He pulled air in gulps and apologized profusely and Bucky never moved so quickly in his life, laying his hands on Steve's shoulders wherever he could pull him in. "I'm sorry. I'm just sorry."  
  
"Stop that, you sound like me," Bucky laughed in spite of himself. Steve didn't. "Come on, I know this feeling, now. You've got nothing to be sorry for."  
  
"I'm not apologizing, I'm just sorry. It's been a whole year since---" Steve hiccuped and it dawned on Bucky which match lit this fire. "I'm still nowhere."  
  
"You're here." Bucky rubbed his hand over Steve’s back, as Nat had done so many times for him. "There's no timeline to follow, you have to cut yourself some slack."  
  
"I feel like that's all I've been doing! She'd---"  
  
“She wouldn't." Bucky asserted blindly. "If she was anything like you, she wouldn't, and I'm not just saying that because I wrote harlequin-adjacent tributes to you all this time. None of that expectation is real, but you're real, and you’re getting by and you're trying. You’re stronger than you think.”  
  
“Not a very high bar to clear,” Steve sighed, wiping his nose and eyes on his sweater sleeve, soothed only just enough to breathe more normally. “That's half the problem. I hate that people are making special plans to accommodate my being lonely at Christmas, even when I don't want it. I hate feeling like I'm gonna be this stagnant, sentimental inconvenience for a hundred years." Bucky nodded, considering it. He'd been wrong thinking that Steve felt neglected; Steve felt guilty for any attention whatever. "I just think too much. It’s fine. I’m just--- not gonna do that so much. I promise it’s fine. Let's talk about anything else. Literally anything.” Bucky was not so dim as to believe him; he knew fine from fine. He’d been fine plenty of times. But he nodded.  
  
“Sure,” he said without agreeing. Steve sweetly attempted to re-roll out the dough he'd kind of destroyed.  
  
"This is kind of monkey's pawwing, isn't it," he sniffled. "I wanted to see you and you show up because I had a breakdown over the espresso machine."  
  
"That's not why I came. But obviously I am not leaving until I fix it," Bucky said, trying to elicit a smile. Steve didn't look up. “How about I do the talking for a while and you just listen?” He offered. "Little guided meditation situation? Huh?" Steve snorted at the thought.  
  
“If you want.” He took a deep breath and put the pin down, running his hands through his hair before plopping down on the low stool and resting his head on the table. “Guess it can't hurt.” Bucky stretched out his arms and pulled against the creaks in his neck, effectively setting the creativity in motion through his veins as he sat next to Steve. Steve looked at him with a thousand yards of exhaustion.   
  
"Close your eyes," Bucky instructed in a low, even voice, soft as he could manage. "We'll go on an imagination vacation." Steve almost smiled but followed instructions.  
  
"I'm gonna fall asleep if you whisper."  
  
"You could probably stand to get some sleep. Just listen to my mellifluous voice. Let it wash over you like melted caramel."   
  
"Yikes."  
  
"I am the guide, no more commentary from the peanut gallery," Bucky whispered sternly before edging back towards a dreamy narration. "We're going to leave this place behind and go somewhere else. Imagine everything on this table: your broken things, your projects, your worries and stress, all on this table. Take a deep breath and envision yourself taking a step back from the table. Leave it here."  
  
To his surprise, Steve took a slow, obedient breath.   
  
"Breathe out all the tension, and take a deep breath of the cool forest air around you." Steve's eyebrows quirked, though he kept his eyes sweetly shut. Bucky was sure he could hear the smile in his voice. "We're in a forest now, keep up," Bucky clarified. "The sunlight cuts through pine boughs in thick, warm streams, and you shuffle through the undergrowth dotted with snow. Real, sweet snow. No city slush and ice, but clear mountain snow in glittering heaps. The air is fresh and unfettered and sparks your lungs awake and alive." Bucky wanted to close his eyes himself, heavier by the minute from a long day, but the sight of Steve so sweet kept his attention rapt. The words came easily; he saw Steve there, in the bosom of that natural dreamscape, fully transported. He hadn't let this sort of spiraling desire take over his imagination in months. It was easy to return. "Birdsong peppers the quiet and you are fully at peace. Your boots crunch in the snow on your way to the cabin, the smoky lure of the fire burning in the hearth inviting you home. It's all of one room, warm and softly glowing. You leave your boots at the door and pad along the woven rugs in wool socks. There is a cup of tea waiting in the pool of sunlight spilling over your desk. Your drawings litter the floor around the work station; inspiration pours out of you onto the pages as you sit down again to lose yourself in your art. The sun is fading into pinks and shy violet just before dusk when you realize the tea has cooled and you feel deliciously spent, surrounded by your heart's work. The embers in the fireplace glow, and you nudge them to life just in time to warm yourself for the evening. The world is quiet but for the cracks and snaps of wood. You are safe and happy and you fall asleep in a nest of quilts and moonlight---"  
  
"Are you there?" Steve's voice reached out to him, a quiet and sweet afterthought, ambiguous in the moment. Bucky smiled, and believed what he wanted.  
  
"Yeah." He ran the tips of his fingers through Steve's hair. "I'm there."   
  
"'s perfect," Steve slurred, calm and pliant. "I'm not moving. This is forever now."  
  
"If you want," Bucky chuckles. "We can."  
  
"Awesome."  
  
"How many days can you take off work?" Steve's eyes flew open.  
  
"Are you serious?" He was fully awake and fully skeptical. "You're not serious."  
  
"Want to hear another story?" Bucky deflected, smiling only slightly too wide. Steve nodded, eyebrows furrowed. “I got in a big fight with Scott today.” Bucky slid the espresso machine towards himself and picked up the screwdriver.  
  
“I thought you were glad he was finally your friend?” Steve asked, yawning as he shook off the relaxation and returned to the cinnamon rolls at hand. He began spreading soft butter over the square of neglected dough. Bucky started fiddling aimlessly with the machine.  
  
“Yeah. Well, I did something stupid, so he and I won’t be working together as much and he was concerned we might not have lunch breaks together anymore and didn’t our friendship mean anything to me, and how could I do this to him at Christmas---” Steve stirred a bowl of cinnamon and sugar, looking over at him suspiciously.  
  
“Why are you smiling?” He asked. Bucky shrugged.  
  
“Because it’s a funny story,” he replied, sly and sweet. Steve didn’t buy it. “Anyway, he said he was gonna hold my Christmas present hostage, which got me nervous because I wasn’t sure we were Christmas-present-friends already but apparently we are---”  
  
“What did you do?” Steve asked. Bucky removed a plastic panel and set the screws on the table.  
  
“--- so, stupidly, I said, ‘I don’t want your Christmas present, it's probably some desk plant Little Shop of Horrors situation’ and that did NOT make things---”  
  
“No I mean, what did you _do_ , Bucky?” Steve repeated.  
  
“Well, I apologized but he is still sending me texts with pictures of him dog like---”  
  
“What _stupid_ thing did you _do_ , _James_?” Steve was starting to laugh through his own impatience, smacking a flour print on Bucky's grey sweater.   
  
“Well I got offered a promotion, Steve, and I thought you were going to let me talk at you, huh?” Bucky said pointedly, a smirk pulling his mouth awry, betraying his intent. Steve huffed and returned to the dough; he rolled it deftly into a puffy, tight log and began slicing it into rolls. “But that’s not the stupid thing, see, and this is going to sound ridiculous now that---”  
  
“Oh no---” Steve buried his face in the crook of his arm, cinnamon debris crumbling to the counter and second-hand embarrassment taking over. Bucky fed off his responses; already Steve seemed transported from his own troubles and lighter than his laughter.  
  
“Anyway I go in to see Tony, and he says to clear out my desk. And I say, 'why.'”  
  
“Oh my god!"  
  
“And he says, 'we never addressed the social media uptick.' And I say, 'oh?'" Steve was watching him with wide eyes, questionably holding his breath. Bucky understood now the allure of a captive audience; it was no small wonder actors preferred live performance when the reactions were so present. "And he says, 'Doreen is taking your desk.' And I say, 'I like that desk.' And he says, 'you’ll like your new one even better.'”  
  
“Holy shit!” Steve nearly dropped the tray on the way to the oven and the smell of warming cinnamon flooded the room.  
  
“Hold on, we’re getting to the stupid part," Bucky winked, and for a moment couldn't believe he actually winked, but was having too much fun to stop now, especially since he had accidentally set this whole situation up so perfectly. "So I say, 'what if I don’t want it?'”  
  
“You idiot!” Steve gasped. "You'd be a real full-time writer! You didn't!"   
  
“I did." Bucky got a pen out of his pocket and took Steve's recipe card, scribbling on the back and putting on his best Tony face. "And he said, 'I think you will.' And he slides over a few numbers.” Pushing back the paper, Steve eagerly looked to see only $$$. He frowned.  
  
“What _kind_ of numbers?” He nearly begged, slumping back into his stool with a kind of whine at the base of his throat. The power trip was not escaping Bucky in the least.  
  
“Big numbers," Bucky assured him. "And I don’t say anything, and he says 'I thought you’d say that.'”  
  
“What a dick thing to say.”  
  
“Fact. But he says, 'when can you start?' And I say, 'January 2nd.'" Bucky heaved a punctuating sigh. "And that’s what happened.” Steve waited a moment for a better punchline but it never came. He held his hands out empty, unfulfilled.  
  
“That was the stupid thing? You took the job? The dream job that you've wanted all this time was a stupid thing?” He asked. Bucky nodded, turning back to the machine. He had no idea what he was doing but he continued to take parts out of it for effect.  
  
“Yeah. It was. Because then he said, ‘what, are you taking three weeks vacation to spend time writing and make art with your boyfriend in the woods first?’ And that sounded like a great idea so I said, ‘yeah. I am.’”   
  
“Three weeks off to--- wait, what?” Steve caught up all at once and screeched to a halt.  
  
“Stupid, I know.” Bucky’s voice was soft but aimed right at the weakest parts in Steve’s resolve. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” Steve could only stare back.  
  
“That so?” He deadpanned. Bucky desperately wanted a read and couldn’t get one. He swallowed.  
  
“It seemed like a power move.”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
“So here I am in a bit of a pickle, because---” Bucky felt himself flushing suddenly and tried to stick to the idea he’d thrown together just an hour before. “Because on the bus on the way over I was thinking, what if I just impulsively made a reservation and--- so somehow it's happening, and I'm going to hang out at this retreat cabin over Christmas on my break before I start working a thousand hours a week," he shrugged. "But in case you want to come with, there is a desk there that I think you’ll like better than this one.” Bucky knocked on the counter lightheartedly, echoing Tony's words. In truth, Tony had been quick to acquiesce to his vacation request. Apparently new subscriptions had reflected a pretty sizeable boost and he was desperate to keep a good thing going. The new year would see Bucky in a new role, one with more creative control and input. Christmas came early. Steve's face remained set in stone, hashing through.

“A desk," he repeated.  
  
“Reserved for the boyfriend I don’t have. But you could just take it for a couple days, if you wanted. Since you helped me earn the money for it. And I’d really like to try being a better anything to you, like friend and travel buddy and supportive artist and all that. Since it seems like maybe you need an escape. A real one. I think I broke this more.” He held up what looked like a heating element that he somehow removed from the espresso machine. Steve balked at him. "I might have to get Sam a Christmas present, huh." Steve folded his arms, staring Bucky down as the writer continued to verbally squirm beneath his gaze. "How much do these things run, like eight, ten bucks?"   
  
“We’re not even dating," Steve pointed out, "and you invite me to some cabin in the woods? That’s not _not_ what a serial killer would do."    
  
"That's another thing," Bucky sighed, taking measured, languid steps towards him. "I can't think of a better way to torture myself than not dating you but I'm really getting tired of it. I'm in a creative slump." Steve laughed out loud; of course he would find a way around asking him out. The man only wrote odes and articles about him for a solid year before speaking to him, after all.  
  
"You could take up smoking. Drinking. Catholicism."  
  
"See, I knew you'd have good ideas."  
  
"I'm nothing if not inspirational," Steve said on barely a breath as Bucky was close enough to kiss and finally, blessedly sealed the moment. “You couldn’t wait seventy years for that second try?” Steve huffed when they parted again. Their foreheads knocked dully and Bucky grinned.  
  
“Felt like I did.” He traced over Steve's cheekbones with his thumbs, staring for miles into Steve's eyes with a kind of disbelieving adoration. "Anyway, so what's new with you?" He broke the reverie and Steve felt his insides dissolve into champagne and gold.  
  
“You know," he couldn't help but laugh, "sometimes I honestly forget you’ve got a big ol’ crush on me.”  
  
“Shut up! Don't tell anyone!" Bucky feigned embarrassment, hiding himself in Steve's shoulder.  
  
“Really. You disguise it so well. Nobody would know.” Steve folded his hands together in the small of Bucky's back, flour dusting the fabric. Considering this, Bucky realized that finally something had usurped Brock in the great regrets of his life, and he was damn well in charge of taking back that time now.  
  
"Now _that_ I can guarantee is a thing of the past," Bucky asserted, pressing a kiss into Steve's neck and, finding he couldn't stop at one, followed with a dozen more. "I promise."  
  
"Those cinnamon rolls must have burnt the place down," Steve said idly, trying desperately to keep cool and not to purr. "Seventy years in the oven. That time really flew by."  
  
"It did," Bucky agreed, inhaling deeply and feeling fully content, held together whole in a perfect moment. He was there when he needed to be, wanted to be, and felt fortunate instead of guilty. There was a mutual gratitude between them, and such bright and sweet hope all sprinkled with cinnamon. "This future's really growing on me. I think we should stay for a little while."  
  
And Steve could think of a thousand other things he'd rather do to Bucky than argue with that.

* * *

Natasha didn't ask questions when Bucky waltzed through at breakfast, dropping a paper bag of rolls on the counter like a hot mic; he reeked of spice and sin and wore flour prints all over his jeans, not to mention the smug satisfaction of a man who no longer needed to imagine how nice that might be. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((I needed a little escape and a little impossibly convenient sweetness, selfishly, so this is what came of that <3 American friends, we're in this together. redwriteblue.tumblr.com if you ever want to chat/organize for revolution/snuggle up.))


	11. An Author's Note

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moments in the Woods, abridged.

> _I’d like to tell you integrity is all a writer has, but in this day and age, a lie can take you just as far, and sometimes the audience can’t tell the difference. There ought to be a sacred responsibility in authorship, a sort of promise to use the medium for good even if it means writing something bad. It is this unspoken oath that drives me to confess to you, readers. Barista Boyfriend is nothing like what I promised you he would be._
> 
> _I danced around the idea as a sort of humility: he’s human, I’m human, shit happens. I tried to tell you as much when I gave up on the idea of him (remember?) and sunk into a pit of despair (you remember.) and pretended like I was Joe Cool about it. I was not Joe Cool or even vaguely related to him. I was nowhere near the Cool family tree. I was three orchards down scrambling through a stand of Panic Spirals and Sad Pines. Joe Cool would never admit to knowing me. I’ve never been chill once in history. For this reason, I don’t surf._ _  
> _ _  
> _ _But somehow, Reader, at this very moment, I write to you from the tawdry tangle of Barista Boyfriend’s twitchy white legs as he sleeps like a dog dreaming of mail trucks. He doesn’t stop moving. He is not a calm, placid pool. He is not a leather-bound book nor its wise tweedy professor. He is a mean hummingbird and he kicks me all the time. Nobody warned me: he’s a fucking helicopter. This became apparent approximately one singular languid moment after falling asleep and never again was peace enjoyed in this bed._ _  
> _ _  
> _ _Another lie I told you: Barista Boyfriend does not know how to live a rustic life. He can bake his way across America but he has no idea how to start a fire. He cannot avoid trouble or stop giving me minor heart attacks. He can somehow find the thinnest patch of ice on the lake and go straight through it._ _  
> _ _  
> _ _((He is exceptional at warming right the fuck back up.))_ _  
> _ _  
> _ _In some ways, he is far worse than I imagined, and I have done a considerable amount of well-documented imagining. Barista Boyfriend is totally baffling and at times, a monster. He rolls his up his shirts before he puts them away; he has never seen a single Star Trek or eaten a kiwi; he still has Beanie Babies; he thinks purple Skittles are objectively better than the other colors; he won’t stop drawing my thighs._

  
“Are you telling them about your incredible thighs?”  
  
“Stop making me think about my thighs,” Bucky admonished, glancing over his screen. “I never thought about my thighs more than twice in my entire life before I met you.” He tapped away at his thoughts, glasses midway down his nose, on what could have been the third or tenth or four hundredth night together in the woods, and Steve continued an idle sketch, sprawled at the bottom of the bed in a nest of the rented cabin's quilts.  
  
“That’s an international disgrace and everyone should be ashamed. They should sing ‘God Save Those Gluts’ before every home game,” he said, looking up to admire them. Bucky would not admit to being proud of them, but since Steve sang their praises like a Greek orator he found himself feeling suddenly very confident about them.   
  
“Good," Bucky said, "then I’d never have to hear it.”  
  
“I never thought I’d love a man who didn’t like sports,” Steve balked, shaking his head.  
  
“Whatever, I watch the Olym---” Steve’s words very suddenly caught up with Bucky and he swerved around them. “Sorry, what was that?” Steve planted a kiss midway past his knee and went back to sketching.  
  
“National treasures,” he said softly, adding flowers and streams of light to the sketch he was unabashedly working on as Bucky opened a new tab.  
  
“That’s not what you said. You said you love me.” His tone was almost mocking. Steve glanced at him witheringly.  
  
“I love parts of you, don’t get ahead of yourself. It isn't even Christmas yet.”  
  
“Which parts.”  
  
“So far all of them except your big mouth and sometimes even that,” Steve grinned down at the paper. “Jury’s out.” 

> _He is doodling flowers on a snowy day, bright yellows and purples. I am ready for spring, I think, I am ready for a thaw._
> 
> _I still look at him and imagine the worlds and lifetimes hidden in his horrible depths. There’s the timeline where the whole world could recognize his smile on Hollywood billboards and silver screens, and a rakish London pickpocket whenever he sneaks a bite of anything I’m eating (truly anything, he is a raccoon with tiny, foraging hands,) a gentle florist arranging sprays of gladiolus in sweet peach and cream, somehow, when I spend too long considering his impossible feathered lashes. He catches me, now and again, and wastes no time bringing me back to earth._

“Do I get to take you out after this?” Steve asked in the dark at some small hour, another night. Bucky mumbled into his neck.  
  
“No.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“I get to take _you_ out,” Bucky corrected. He breathed in deeply, a salt of sweat and the sweet of fresh sheets (no longer fresh.) Steve hummed.  
  
“Oh, huh, you think you’re wearing the pants?” He challenged the writer. Bucky shrugged.  
  
“I hope neither of us wear pants as much as possible.”  
  
“No but actually. This--- you’re not going to go back to work and forget about me at the coffee shop while you make millions and travel the world, right?” Steve asked, a more serious tone cutting through to the core of the words. Bucky recognized the exact melody of this feeling, a song he heard himself sing in beds he shared. He kissed at the shoulder meeting the neck.  
  
“Wouldn’t dare,” he said. Steve relaxed in his arms.  
  
“This isn’t a fluke?”  
  
“This is not a fluke.”  
  
“I’m not your Christmas Vacation fling?”  
  
“Of course not,” Bucky assured him, tracing his hands in idle patterns over Steve’s arms, following the tattoo lines. “I’ll need a Valentine fling. And then there’s St. Patrick’s Day; I hate dodging drunk frat boys alone. Then Easter and Fourth of July and Halloween… but I guess if you don’t want to do Christmas again next year we can try Hanukkah. My mother would lose her mind from happiness…” He rambled and Steve’s attention suddenly piqued.  
  
“Are you Jewish?” He asked. Bucky laughed low and warm.  
  
“You tell _me_ , sailor.”  
  
“Jewish.” Steve seemed to consider it. “Then how are we going to raise Hambone? He’ll be so confused.”  
  
“We are not stealing Scott’s dog, Steven.” Outside, a nightbird called in the snowy silence. The moonlight threw a calm blue haze on the room, and what skin Steve exposed to the light glowed with its magic.  
  
“I guess we’ll have to get our own pup, then. And let him practice whichever religion he chooses,” he asserted. Bucky nodded.  
  
“I guess so.”  
  
“Can you do a bar mitzvah AND get confirmed? Do they cross-check you before you RSVP to a religion?”  
  
“Probably not for dogs,” Bucky mumbled, as sleep was slowly creeping over. A bare whisper he brushed the back of Steve’s neck. “ _Bark mizvah_ ,” he breathed. Steve started laughing, a stifled cough that grew to uncontrollable, shaking a chuckle from Bucky eventually, contagious and unstoppable. Bucky couldn’t help himself; he wrapped his arms all the way around Steve and pulled him as close as they could get, even as the strain was uncomfortable and Steve was squirming with laughter, fighting his hold.  
   
“Let me go!”  
  
“No,” Bucky smiled into Steve’s skin. “Never again.”   

> _But sometimes, he goes so far off the map of my expectation (and my wild imaginings) that I worry I can never write anything as good as the absolute nonsense he is capable of. I could never have dreamed him spending three solid hours learning a single magic trick and never once losing the light in his eyes when he got it right. No part of my imagination had considered he might have been in a community theater production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, or that he’s absolutely going to run full-speed into a flock of pigeons yelling bloody murder whenever he gets a chance. I did not think he would sneak candy into the groceries._

“This is the cabin,” Steve had said with both a question and an answer when they first arrived. Bucky worried his lip.  
  
“This is the cabin,” he replied.  
  
“It didn’t look like this on Air BnB, did it,” Steve asked with a knowing smile, resting his head in his arms on top of Sam’s borrowed car. The air was crisp and sweet in the quiet of the woods and in spite of what could have passed for a horror movie set, the sun slanted the shadows in a nice dusky gold over the house and Bucky wouldn’t let even a twig out of place ruin his happy vibe.  
  
“It’s perfect,” he said triumphantly. Steve sighed, watching him tromp around the front porch. “I will write the great American novel within these walls, Stevie!”  
  
“And I will lure lost children and cook them in a giant cauldron for us,” Steve promised, looking out on the endless trees like a pioneer. Bucky glared from beneath his flapped winter hat.  
  
“Shut up, you’ll paint your masterpiece.” He had such a definitive plan in mind, each day scheduled within an inch of its life: an hour for exploring the woods, an hour for light reading, an hour for non-fiction, and hour for lunch. Steve crumpled up that schedule as soon as he laid eyes on it. He instead listed the ways they might play in the snow when the mood struck, or mull wine with spices, or look at the stars.   
  
“Sure, I’ll paint it with their blood. If we’re not murdered by backwoods cannibals first.”  
  
“Probably should not have listened to that true crime podcast on the way up,” Bucky sighed. "You didn't have to come, I'll remind you."  
  
“And give you a chance to rethink my honorary boyfriend status? Absofucking not, Barnes.” Steve grabbed his backpack from the car and swung it over his shoulders. Bucky opened the front door and gestured grandly.  
  
“If we survive this vacation together in this cabin, I’ll call you anything you like. You’ll have earned it.”  
  
“I haven’t earned it already? I bled for you, baby,” Steve reminded him, planting a chaste kiss on his cheek as he passed into the cabin. Bucky winced.  
  
“We should probably not ever tell anyone that story. Just as a thought."  
  
“It has its charms,” Steve assured him, inspecting the cabin’s great room. One heavily quilted queen bed sat sturdy on the far end, its posts the same knotted wood as the ceiling beams. There was a dinner table with two chairs and an open, humble kitchen with a single cast-iron pan and copper kettle waiting. “Just your average meet-cute. You stalked me at my workplace and then one day finally worked up the courage to hit me in the face. And then I agreed to be in a racy bedroom photo shoot for free and---”  
  
“Textbook love story,” Bucky sighed, setting grocery bags on the table. Steve flopped over on the bed, watching him unpack.  
  
“Just like you wrote in your romance column, huh?”  
  
“In every conceivable way,” the writer replied, smiling as he found s’mores ingredients among dinner ingredients and supplies. “Did I buy these?”  
  
“I like it here already. I feel like we’re gonna earn all our merit badges on this trip.” Steve said, kicking his legs up behind him as he lay on his stomach, face framed in his hands. “You should write for that site again,” Steve suggested. “Maybe just one. Honestly you left them on such a sour note, I feel terrible for your readers.”  
  
“As I recall you got the last word,” Bucky mumbled, stuffing an entire marshmallow in his mouth.  
  
“Had to,” Steve huffed. “I was desperately smitten and somebody suggested I write my way out.”  
  
“Good advice. Somebody ought to put that into a song, or a Tony-winning musical."  
  
"Don't eat all my marshmallows, I have big plans for those."

> _It’s nice to end a story where a new one begins; it’s only fair to the beauty of a cyclical world. You can’t ever be sure what will resolve, what will stay behind, what needs to lie forgotten, what should be revered. There will always be new chapters. They are only as good as you can imagine them to be. You can build an ending, a beginning, and the parts in between, sturdy from the boughs of the forest around you like a cabin the woods, and figure it out as you go. I want to tell you I learned something, a hundred somethings. I want to tell you that the love story you’re reading finally has a new chapter._
> 
> _But most of all I want to tell you all that came before was the truest Bible of lies I ever wrote, every hope I had for him and for myself. Even the parts that were a little wrong, the colors off by shades, the edges that were a little burnt. I’ll come back and tell you it was all just as real. I’ll be glad you can’t believe me._

“Stop looking at me.”  
  
“I’m drawing you, I have to look at you.”  
  
“Yeah, but it’s hard to write when your eyes are boring into my skull,” Bucky scowled, deleting his last several words with aggressive jabs.  
  
“That’s a great sentence,” Steve said, his hand pressing heavy in the shadow of Bucky’s brow on his sketchbook. “Write that down.”  
  
“‘His eyes, normally blue and easy, were breaking my face into children’s geometry for his lazy pencil.’” Bucky typed that very sentence in another window, one where he was putting observations of Steve’s behavior, things he hated and things he loved and the horrible, cheesy things he couldn’t stop imagining when Steve wasn’t looking, which wasn’t very often. Between that and the articles he was working on, he was a lot more productive than usual and could only imagine why. They spent their afternoons like this, working, and the bright days blended together in a sweet monotony.  
  
“See, writing is easy when you’re irritated,” the artist said, relaxed and happy on his side of the dinner table. Bucky would not admit how much work he’d gotten done, because Steve would positively gloat about it. One of Steve’s Birdhouse mixes played softly from his phone on the kitchen counter, abandoned there with Bucky’s. Blessedly there was no service anywhere to be found. Neither could be sure of the day but for the quality of light and number of nights spent together.  
  
“I’m not irritated.”  
  
“Your face is doing that thing.” Steve gestured vaguely with his pencil. “You’re irritated.”  
  
“Don’t tell me what my face is doing.”  
  
“You can’t see yourself like I can,” Steve said, stretching in the sunlight.  
  
“Cheesy line.”  
  
“So put it in your writing.”  
  
“Asshole.”  
  
“I’m gonna draw your writing face so you can see how much you look like one of those old man Muppets in the balcony who are always criticizing Kermit the Frog,” Steve said, flipping to a new page and drawing a simple, frowning face in a circle. Bucky rolled his eyes.  
  
“You’re so sweet to me, sometimes, all compliments and adoration, Kermit.”  
  
“I just want you to be happy. Such a sourpuss." Steve began to draw the outline of the windowsill right over the frowning face, beams and sparkling snow setting it back. "What are you writing that makes you look like that. Write something else.”  
  
“You’re very bad for productivity,” Bucky dodged the question, typing again. Steve watched his face and the frustrated frown re-appeared a few sentences in.  
  
“You’re doing work!” Steve exclaimed. “I can tell! You said you wouldn’t do work!” Bucky cowed, dropping his head.  
  
“I just have to fix up this article about Planned Parenthood, some dipshit kid on staff decided to have a hot take on throwing a men’s march that is somehow both too soon and too late and truly missing the---”  
  
“Bucky.”  
  
“If I don’t fix it, no one will!” Bucky whined.  
  
“Doreen can handle it!”  
  
“It’s offensive!”  
  
“And how’re you going to send it to anyone without wifi, Yasha?” Steve folded his arms defiantly and took all the air out of Bucky's argument.  
  
“I wish I hadn’t told you that name,” he said under his breath, conceding as he closed his laptop entirely. Steve nudged him with his foot under the table.  
  
“It’s the only important thing you’ve ever said to me and I’m keeping it safe.”  
  
“I tell you important shit all the time!” Bucky asserted. He picked up coffee mugs around his work space until he found one with coffee left in it. It was not particularly good, given they had both promised not to do work and for Steve, that meant making any hot or cold beverages. Bucky's coffee technique was lacking if well-meant.  
  
“No, you don't,” the artist said wistfully, idly shading. “Not really.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I don’t know a whole lot about you, Buck.”  
  
“That’s not true. You know me!” Bucky swallowed a mouthful of cold coffee and thought about it. “...don’t you know me? Steve?”  
  
“What’s your favorite color?” The other man asked, setting down his pencil and cracking his knuckles. Bucky huffed.  
  
“I don’t know, we’re adults! Favorite color doesn’t matter anymore.”  
  
“Favorite color matters a lot,” Steve assured him. Bucky thought he had a good idea of Steve’s; he was grinning back at him in Bucky’s chunky green sweater and had been for at least twenty-four hours. Then again, his boxers were blue. He frustrated himself not knowing.  
  
“Stop smiling at me,” he groused.  
  
“You don’t want to tell me all your secrets. That's alright,” Steve sighed with a feigned hurt. "I understand."  
  
“Sure I do!”  
  
“You're refusing to bare your soul, that's okay. I'm beginning to feel like you're just using me for my body, but whatever,” Steve waved his hand dismissively.  
  
“I don’t see you offering any secrets up on the altar of dignity in return, Rogers,” Bucky said, leaning across the table. Steve recognized the look in his eyes, the playful spark that signaled a swift descent towards aggressive smooching.  
  
“Oh, it’s a barter system?” He considered the options. “Okay, I’ll trade you my first kiss story for yours.”  
  
“Come on, we’re starting there?” Bucky whined but it should not have surprised him that Steve opted for going big or going home. “Favorite color to first kiss skips like twelve years of life!”  
  
"I'll give you mine if I can have yours," Steve offered. Bucky shook his head.  
  
"No way. Mine's not cute."  
  
“Well, I mean," Steve said with a shrug, "do you want to hear mine or don’t you?” Bucky rolled his head back; the levels of exasperation he felt around this kid reached new levels every day.  
  
“Yes," Bucky hissed, defeated. "I do.”  
  
“Good choice. Just don't get jealous,” Steve said. He remembered it like it only just happened. “I was in grade school, maybe 8 or 9. We were playing on the blacktop at recess and this girl Carol, had a good three inches on me in all directions, said I stepped out of bounds and I didn’t, and we were arguing all up in each other’s faces and she just, mid-shout, popped her face right up to mine. Chaste little smash, and kept yelling that I broke the rules. Kids watching us went absolutely nuts, and she was so cool about it. She told them they were all imagining things.”  
  
“Aw, Steven. Young love,” Bucky said with no small affection, imagining the scenario like it was some 80’s coming of age film. Steve ducked his head with a blush, smiling at the thought.  
  
“I would have walked off a bridge for her after that. I was totally bewildered.”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“She moved at the end of the year. I never recovered,” Steve said, casting his hand across his forehead in mock melodrama. “Been trying to replace her and coming up short every time.” Bucky winked at him.  
  
“You can call me Carol if you want.”  
  
“Oh, Yasha, you spoil me. I want to hear yours.”  
  
“What did Carol look like?” Bucky propped himself on one arm, gazing at Steve, seeing shades of that playground boy, that unmistakeable flush of embarrassment. Steve wound a vine through his sketched flowers.  
  
“Like you, only with tits,” he joked languidly. Bucky smirked.  
  
“Ah yes. My one regret.”  
  
“Give me a second.” Steve flipped to a fresh page and picked up a piece of charcoal. His arm washed over the paper in alternating gestures, wide and delicate, and he smiled all the while as his eyes danced behind each stroke. He turned the book to Bucky and she came to life immediately, a girl’s face gaunt with youth and summer, light hair soft and unruly. Her strong arms crossed over herself defiantly. Bucky could hear her voice, somehow, hear her taunts. Steve watched him for a reaction. “How I remember her, anyway. Carol Danvers.”  
  
“She’s amazing,” Bucky said. “You’re amazing, Steve.”  
  
“When you look at me like that I feel like you’re seeing something totally different.”  
  
“I am,” Bucky said automatically, and as the words fell he felt maybe that didn’t make any sense, and laughed at himself. “God, that’s terrible writing.”  
  
“Put it in your story. Read me a sentence. Whatever you last typed.”  
  
“‘I am no longer worried that he is too good for me. The toast is burnt enough to draw with,’” Bucky said through a smirk, glancing at the breakfast Steve had made them, indistinguishable from the charcoal smeared on Steve’s hands.  
  
“I seem to recall getting a little distracted during the breakfast process,” Steve said with a cocked eyebrow.  
  
“I was hungry,” Bucky said, incapable of repressing his joy at the explicit memory of only hours before. “You’re a goddamn baker, boy. Thought you could stand a little heat in the kitchen!”  
  
“A menace,” Steve groused, though he smiled. He flipped to a new pages and quickly pressed an outline in black. “Keep that look for a second.”  
  
“What look?”  
  
“The one where you’re remembering how your tongue caused me to set bread on fire.” Bucky barked a laugh. “That one. That’s my favorite.”  
  
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Bucky said, sticking his tongue out. Steve instinctively reached out and swiped the charcoal down Bucky’s tongue leaving a black trail, and he erupted in howling laughter as Bucky reared back and batted at his own face like a bear stung by a bee. “What’s wrong, baby? Taste like toast?”  
  
“Disgusting! What the fuck! My tongue!”  
  
“He started it,” Steve said, using the now damp charcoal to trace Bucky’s lips on the page. Bucky wasted no time yanking him from the work table and letting Steve experience the taste himself. When finally the fire calmed to a glowing ember between them, a thousand touches, kisses, and shared breaths later, Steve nudged at Bucky’s side with the back of his hand within the tangle of their limbs.  
  
“You never told me your first kiss.”  
  
“Just now. Every one of ‘em, a first,” he said, wrinkling his nose at his own sentimentality. “What’s your favorite color?” He asked. Steve brought his hands to Bucky’s face and pointed right at his eyes.  
  
“That one,” he said, pecking Bucky on the nose. “My absolute favorite.” Bucky winced with a broken laugh, reverberating in the small space between them.  
  
“Fucking awful. You might be cheesier than I am.”  

> _For all that I still wonder if he’s a figment of my imagination. My ego knows no bounds. Did I sew together all these odd pieces and fantasies on a slab and shock it to life?_
> 
> _How else could any man, writer, god, explain such luck?_
> 
> _When I am a better writer, I’ll try again. Until then, you have my word and bond that I will spend every waking moment researching every possible explanation, every inch, every gesture and breath, and report back to you. I’ll keep trying to write it all down._

“Yeah, you say that now and then later when I make dinner you’ll sneak that cheesy line in your manuscript,” Steve asserted.  
  
“Will not.”  
  
“I want fifty percent.”  
  
“Forty.”  
  
“Fifty.” Steve fit himself sleepily against Bucky, nuzzling himself as close as the limits of the body would allow. “And you get half of everything I bake in return.”  
  
“Half of _everything_? You’ll kill me!”  
  
“You’ll die a happy man.”  
  
“Fair,” Bucky said, pressing a kiss to Steve's temple. “I’ll live a happy man, too.”

> _  
> I am nervously, pleasantly sure it will take plenty of time to begin._   _  
>   
>    
>    
>    
>  Chapter 1: _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have spent over a year in this coffee shop and I have loved every one of you who stopped by for something sweet. Thank you for reading! You can find me (and eventually the scraps of this world that didn't make the cut) on redwriteblue.tumblr.com. <3


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